


with a bullet

by waveydnp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Getting Together, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25214422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: phil returns to his room after a party thrown by his housemates only to discover that there’s already someone in his bed
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 74
Kudos: 392





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oriharakaoru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriharakaoru/gifts).



**Phil**

Phil falls asleep on the sofa. He’s getting better at holding his booze but the party’s gone late into the night and the sun hadn’t even started setting yet when his housemates pulled him from his room to do pre-party shots.

He was trying to be a good student for once, maybe actually finish a paper sooner than the night before it’s due. 

He should have known how futile such an endeavour would be. He shares this house with four other people, and it’s Friday night. Even if they hadn’t been throwing a rager, someone would’ve been knocking at his door with a bottle of something cheap and high proof eventually. He’ll have to scrape himself out of bed and drag his hungover ass to the library tomorrow afternoon. No one will think to look for him there.

One of his housemates - Andy, prank-loving bastard that he is - wakes Phil up by dragging a sharpie under his nose. Phil’s not sure if it’s the scratchiness or the smell that does it, but he jerks back into consciousness and rubs his upper lip with the back of his hand in bleary confusion, frowning at the betrayal.

Andy laughs. “Fucked up your new moustache, Lester.”

Phil groans. “I hate you.” He’s awake, but only by a measure of half at the most. He’s very drunk, and his eyes are stubbornly trying to droop back to closed. “M’gonna get you back for that,” he slurs.

“Sure sure.” Andy caps the sharpie and tosses it in Phil’s lap. “Go to bed, idiot. Your snoring is harshing my buzz.”

Phil throws the sharpie back and misses by a wide margin as his contacts feel blurry on his eyeballs and he can’t see that well. Those last couple shots of tequila probably didn’t help anything, either. He grumbles and groans and hauls himself up off the communal couch, on which he wasn’t the only one sleeping, but he’s too pissed up to save the other snoozer from falling victim to a similar prank. 

He staggers down the hall to the toilet, not even bothering to close the door all the way before pulling himself out of his pants for a wee. No one comes in, but he’s way past the point of caring if they did. He washes his hands and his face and fumbles his contacts out and brushes his teeth and cups mouthful after mouthful of lukewarm water down his throat straight from the tap before stumbling to his bedroom. 

He doesn’t bother turning the light on once he gets there, just kicks the door shut, takes off his jeans, and collapses into his bed. 

Honestly, the fact that there’s already a warm body under his covers hardly even registers as odd. It was a wild party, and it’s not the first time one of his housemates has gotten so hammered that they wandered into the wrong room. It’s so nice and cozy under his duvet that he just tucks himself up against the person’s back and closes his eyes. He’ll figure out which of his mates he’s snuggling with in the morning.

**Dan**

When the door creaks open and light spills into the darkened room, Dan assumes whoever it is will see that he’s already claimed this bed. They’ll mumble a sheepish apology and close the door again and leave him to his drunken crash. The girl throwing this party said he could sleep here. She’d given him an up and down appraising sort of look so lacking in subtlety that he thought she was going to try to go in there with him, but then she’d just smiled and pointed out this room in particular. “This is the one for you,” she’d said, and Dan was grateful.

He doesn’t know anyone here, besides the guy from halls who insisted they come, and Dan barely knows him either. He’s only been at York for a month and this party was clearly meant for older students, but he’s trying not to do the thing where he pushes away people’s offers of friendship. 

But he drank a lot tonight. And then he lost track of his new mate. And his fucking phone died and it’s half two in the morning in a town he still doesn’t really know his way around and he’s not got more than a fiver in his pocket because he never plans ahead, so crashing seemed like the best option. And then he found a bed! A whole unoccupied bed. He got lucky.

But then the door creaked open and light flooded into the dark room and the interloper didn’t mutter a sheepish apology and close the door again, they came in and all but slammed the door closed and, from the sounds of it, took off some clothes and crawled right into the bed! The bed Dan happens to already be lying in - without a bloody shirt, by the way!

His whole body has gone stiff. He can’t see anything, but he can feel that the person who plasters themself against his back is a bloke. There’s no swell of breast, but the distinct boniness of a flat chest, and the smell of cologne. And tequila.

This situation - the one where he’s in a semi intimate position with another guy - it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. But he’s always at least known that the other guy _knows_ what they’re getting into, even if they’d never admit to it outside the confines of privacy. Dan’s no stranger to being the secret gay experiment, the drunken makeout and groping session that ceases to exist when it’s over. 

But he knows how guys are, especially guys who still want to be able to claim their straightness. Namely, he knows that they can be dangerous.

He’s not looking for trouble right now. He’s just trying to sleep.

So he grunts, clearing his throat in as deep and gruff a voice as he can muster. “Oi,” he says. “Bed’s taken, mate.”

The guy whines. It’s kind of cute actually, or it would be if Dan weren’t so bloody petrified. 

“There’s plenty of room for me,” the guy says, pushing himself up against Dan’s back even more tightly. He sighs, and Dan feels the warmth of it on the back of his neck. “S’nice anyway, innit?” the guy asks. He’s clearly as drunk as Dan, if not even more so. “Good cuddle. Warm.” He snakes his arm around Dan’s waist and squeezes.

“M’not your girlfriend, man,” Dan says, his voice going comically chavvy. He needs to make sure his maleness is made clear.

“Don’t have one of those,” the guy says. “Not my thing.”

Dan doesn’t know what that means. The guy’s obviously sloshed, and probably doesn’t even know what he’s saying. Dan knows he should probably cut his losses and get up, go find somewhere else to crash.

But the thing is. 

This guy is literally clinging to him. They’re fully spooning… and Dan kind of loves it.

He really really loves it. This guy has a nice deep voice and he smells good and his arm is hooked around Dan’s stomach purposely. He did that on purpose, and he’s continuing to do it on purpose, and Dan hasn’t so much as gotten a hug since he left Wokingham, and the comfort of this level of human intimacy and affection is doing things to his body and his brain and fuck it, he’s drunk too, he’s allowed to be a little bit stupid and a little bit selfish and lie here accepting a cuddle from a stranger if he fucking wants to. He was here first. And he’s the passive one in this situation. 

Okay, maybe he’s a little bit hard, but he’s not going to do anything about it. And it’ll be gone by morning. The guy will never know. They’ll lie here in this little bed and they’ll sleep and it’ll be nice and in the morning they can ignore it and go their separate ways and it won’t matter at all. 

“I’m gonna sleep,” Dan says. 

“Mmm,” the guy hums, squeezing Dan’s middle, pulling him in closer. “Yeah. Me too. G’night.”

Dan smiles. He can’t help it. He might actually get some sleep tonight.

-

When he opens his eyes again, it’s because there’s a voice behind his ear saying, “Oh my god.”

**Phil**

The first thought that registers is surprise that he doesn’t feel worse. He drank loads last night. He was still drunk when he fell asleep. Not that he’s complaining, it’s just… not what he was expecting. In fact, he feels kind of… good?

Oh. He’s hard. That explains it. Maybe he does have a headache, but it’s masked by the sensation of blood pooling in his cock.

Second thought is the one that should have been the first: he’s not alone. There’s a ridiculously warm body wedged between him and the wall, and it’s only then that Phil remembers crawling into bed last night with whichever of his housemates had decided it was too much effort to climb the stairs to their own room. 

He shuffles back a little, not wanting to press his boner against the ass of any of his friends. Or a stranger for that matter, not that this person is a—

Oh. Oh fuck. Oh _fuck_.

“Oh my god,” Phil croaks, his body suddenly a vessel of pure unadulterated fear.

It _is_ a stranger.

Now that he’s looking he can see that fact rather plainly, even without his glasses. None of his housemates have hair this long. Well, the girls do, but theirs is longer. All the guys have proper guy haircuts, but whoever this person is has something like Phil’s: straight, long enough that he can tell even from that back that it’s cut in the same emo style as his own.

Suddenly the stranger turns around, the blanket falling off their shoulder a little and — fuck. It’s a bloke. A shirtless one. A shirtless bloke with an emo haircut and dark brown eyes as wide as Phil’s must be.

“Shit,” Phil says. This guy is proper gorgeous. And probably about to punch Phil in the face.

“What?” the guy asks, sounding just as panicked as Phil feels, yanking the blanket up to his chin.

“I thought you were one of my housemates,” Phil croaks, shuffling as far back as he can without falling off the edge of the bed - which is really only about half a foot. “My room is the only one on the main floor so sometimes—”

“This is _your_ room?” the guy asks. “This is your bed?”

Phil nods. “I would never just cuddle up to a stranger like that. I’m so—”

“I asked the girl throwing the party,” the guy interrupts. “I asked if there was somewhere I could sleep and she pointed me here.”

Phil narrows his eyes. Amelia. She must have thought it would be hilarious to leave a hot guy in bed for her gay housemate to discover. He decides he’ll start plotting her murder as soon as he cleans up this mess.

“I reckon she was trying to mess with me,” Phil says. “My housemates have this juvenile obsession with pranking.”

“You could have kicked me out,” the guy says. “I didn’t know it was your room.”

Phil shakes his head, then hides his face. “I’m really sorry. I get so touchy when I’m drunk. My housemates all know that, so—”

The guy interrupts him again. “So you remember?”

“Remember what?”

The guy’s cheeks go pink. “The touching?”

Phil feels all the blood drain from his face. “What? Did I touch you?”

“No, not—” The guy sits up against the headboard, keeping the blanket clutched to his chest, though his shoulders are exposed now and they’re nice and broad and Phil hates himself for noticing that, but he does. He really does. This guy is like… _exactly_ his type. Brown hair, soft face, pretty eyes. 

Fucking Amelia. She knew exactly what she was doing.

“Not like _that_ ,” the guy says. “Just, you know… the cuddling.”

Phil bites his lip and nods. “I’m sorry. You should have told me to bugger off.”

Now the guy bites his lip. It’s… distracting, to say the least. He looks down and shakes his fringe into his eyes. “I guess I could have. But…” He says the next bit so quietly it’s almost a whisper. “I didn’t really want to.” He looks up. “I was drunk too. And I liked that you were touchy.”

“I’m gay,” Phil blurts. It’s awkward as hell, but he needs it to be known immediately. He needs to give this guy the facts so he can flee before things escalate into something scary and ugly. 

The guy’s face smoothes out. “You are?”

“Yeah,” Phil says, pulling his knees up to his chest. “Sorry.”

“That’s not…” He shakes his head. “Not a problem.”

“Still,” Phil presses on. “I’m sure you’re like, super uncomfortable and I’m really sorry, I didn’t—”

“I’m not.”

Phil frowns. “You’re not?”

He shakes his head. His cheeks are so pink now, splotchy in a way that only makes him look more adorable. “I’m… I am too. I think. Mostly. I dunno.”

Phil frowns harder. “Sorry, what?”

The guy reaches up to run his fingers through his fringe, sweep it across his forehead and out of his eyes. “I like guys.”

“Oh.”

“So if anyone took advantage of anyone in this situation,” the guy says, “it was me, not you.”

Phil’s heart is pounding, and inexplicably, he’s a little bit hard again. Truly, truly pathetic. “You didn’t do anything,” he says, and his voice comes out gravelly. 

“I let you spoon me all night.”

“I wanted to,” Phil says.

“Yeah but I didn’t know what you were thinking. I didn’t tell you who I was.”

“I didn’t ask,” Phil says. “I touched you without asking, I’m definitely the creep.”

“You’re not a creep,” the guy argues. “You’re lovely.”

That shuts Phil up. Momentarily. “Um.”

“Sorry.” The guy shakes his head. “I’m gonna leave you alone now.” He drops the blanket and starts to shift around to get up.

Phil hates it. Before he can give himself permission, his hand is darting out to clamp around the guy’s wrist. “No.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “No?”

Phil lets go quickly. “Sorry. I just… You don’t have to leave.”

The guy sits back down. Phil doesn’t even pretend not to study his body, the vast expanse of flat hairless chest and brown nipples and faint trail of hair under his bellybutton. 

“Obviously you can if you want to, though.”

“What’s your name?” the guy asks.

“Phil. You?”

“Dan.”

Phil nods. “That’s good information to have.”

Dan smirks. It’s just a little one, barely there. Phil only sees it because he’s looking so intently. 

“Do you want to leave?” Phil asks. 

Dan counters with a question of his own. “What time is it?”

Phil twists around to get a look at the alarm clock on his bedside table. “A little after six.”

“I never, ever, _ever_ get up this early,” Dan says.

Phil agrees. “Me neither.”

“We should still be sleeping.”

Phil nods.

“So… let’s do that.”

**Dan**

He’s got no idea what he’s doing. His heart is pounding so hard he’s a little afraid it might break a rib, but this guy - Phil - he’s looking at Dan like Dan’s something nice to look at. He’s looking like he wants Dan to stay, and Dan does want to stay. 

Phil is something nice to look at. Some _one_ nice to look at. Someone nice to cuddle. A very fit guy with insanely blue eyes and perfect black hair and obscenely pretty lips and— he wants Dan to stay.

So Dan’s gonna stay. 

Phil asks, “Yeah?” his eyes gone wide, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. 

Dan nods, and scoots his ass forward so he can lay his head down on the pillow without hitting it on the headboard. “Your bed is comfy.”

God, he sounds like a git. He should probably just not talk. The more he talks the sooner Phil will realize what a gigantic mistake he’s made. He’s giving a very desperate dog a very tasty bone right now, even if all they do is lie next to each other in awkward silence.

Because there’s no way in hell Dan’s going back to sleep. Not now that he knows how hot Phil is. Not now that he knows Phil is _gay_.

It feels like some kind of test. Like the universe dropping a fantasy level daydream into his lap to tempt him into doing something stupid just to it take it away at the last second and point and laugh. There really can’t be any other explanation. Things like this don’t happen to Dan. He’s never been lucky a day in his life.

Phil lies down too, but he doesn’t make any move to pull Dan close like he had last night. It’s disappointing, but not surprising. He’s probably trying to formulate the right words to claim temporary insanity and ask Dan as politely as possible to get the fuck out of his room. 

Because he’s clearly a nice guy. Probably the nicest Dan’s met since coming up north for school. Maybe before that, even. It’s not like Reading is crawling with nice guys. Quite the opposite actually.

Phil is a nice guy, which means he’s probably just picked up on the fact that Dan is young and lonely and pathetic. He’s probably just trying not to hurt Dan’s feelings. He’s probably—

“So,” Phil says, and Dan is humiliatingly startled. He actually jumps a little. “Oh, sorry,” Phil says quickly. “Sorry, you’re sleeping, I’ll shut up.”

“I’m not,” Dan says, scraping together every ounce of bravery he has left to roll over on his side facing Phil. “What’s up?”

“I was gonna ask…” Phil blinks. “Um. Actually I don’t know what I was gonna ask. Sorry.”

Dan smiles. His chest feels achy, but he thinks in a good way. Honestly, it’s been so long since he felt good that he can’t even be sure. “You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

“Right,” Phil says, rolling over so he’s facing Dan as well. His hair falls into his eyes and he reaches up to brush it to the side. It’s really perfect hair, exactly what Dan always wants but can never seem to achieve. “I do that.”

“What do you want to ask?” Dan prompts. “I’m an open book.”

“Yeah?”

“Well. I guess… not usually. But… in this situation. Yeah. I mean I already told you, like, my biggest secret.”

A very adorable little crease forms between Phil’s eyebrows. “You did?”

Dan nods. “Never really… you know.” He licks his lip. “Come out before.”

“Oh.” Phils voice is gentle. “Wow.”

“It’s not a big deal or anything, ‘cause like, you did it first, so I just had to say ‘me too,’ but… yeah.”

“Your mates don’t know?”

Dan almost snorts, but he catches it and holds it in. “I don’t really have many of those. Especially not here.”

“Here? At York?”

Dan nods. He doesn’t say that the distinction means nothing because he doesn’t really have many mates anywhere. He doesn’t want to let all his loser cards show right away. Or like… ever. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Only got here a month ago. I’m friendly with the people in halls, but I wouldn’t consider them mates, necessarily. Yet. And definitely not enough to tell them… that.”

“How old are you?” Phil asks. “This is your first year of uni?”

Dan nods again. “I’m eighteen. I wanted to take a gap year but my dad wouldn’t let me. He said if I did I’d have to move out and I didn’t have enough money for that, so… here I am.”

Phil looks vaguely displeased, and Dan assumes it’s because he’s older and mildly horrified that Dan is very much not older, but then he says, quietly, “Your dad said that?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s…” His eyes search Dan’s face, so big and blue and observant that Dan has the instinct to turn away. He doesn’t, though, because it feels like being seen in a way that he’s always craved. “That’s awful.”

Dan shrugs. “He doesn’t like me very much.”

Phil doesn’t like that answer at all. The displeasure on his face is no longer vague. 

“Anyway,” Dan says. “So I haven’t really made proper friends yet. And the ones I had back home all knew I was bent, even if I never told them. And they were real assholes about it. So yeah, you’re the first person I’ve ever really told on my own terms.”

“And you told me before you even knew my name,” Phil says in a voice that sounds far away, like most of him has retreated into his own thoughts.

Dan laughs. “Yeah. Guess so.”

“I haven’t told anyone back home,” Phil says. “But when I moved here I told myself I wasn’t gonna pretend to be someone I wasn’t anymore. So everyone knows.”

“That’s so fucking cool.”

Phil smiles. His teeth are a bit crooked, and it only makes him hotter to Dan. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dan says resolutely. “I wish I could do that.”

“Maybe you are,” Phil says. “Maybe this was the first step.”

Dan chews his lip. “Not everyone is as nice as you.”

“You can tell me more things,” Phil offers. “If you want.”

“Like what?”

“Like… where are you from?”

“Wokingham. Near Reading. It’s a shithole. You?”

“Manchester. Well, a very small town near Manchester.”

“I almost went there for school,” Dan says. “But then I got accepted here and it’s even farther from home, so. That was pretty much the decider.”

“What are you studying?”

Dan crinkles his nose. “Fucking law.”

Phil makes a similarly disgusted face. “That sounds horrible.”

“It is,” Dan assures. “Last time I ever do anything to try to impress my dad.” 

Phil looks upset again, so Dan doesn’t dwell on it. “How old are you?” he asks.

“Twenty two.”

“Oh, shit.” He hadn’t been expecting that. His attraction ratchets up another notch. “And you’re still here?”

Phil smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, I know. I’m doing my master’s now. I think I’m a bit addicted to uni.”

This time, Dan does snort. “Wow. Can’t fucking relate.”

“I think I’ll graduate this year. I dunno. My parents keep telling me I’ll have to suck it up and become a grownup eventually. Get a job and all that. My brother works for the NHS and my dad owns his own business that he runs with my mum.” He sighs. “School feels safer. Like a shield between me and real life.”

“I would think they’d be proud that you’re so enthusiastic about getting an education,” Dan says.

“Yeah, well. They’re paying for it.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah,” Phil says. “I assume you’re paying your own way?”

“Well, my loans are,” Dan says. “I’ll be in debt for the rest of eternity, but at least I’m not in fucking Wokingham.”

Phil smiles. “Nah. You’ll be a lawyer. You’ll make loads of money.”

“I don’t even know if I can make it through the first semester,” Dan admits. “I’m a seriously rubbish student, like. I can't even tell you how bad.”

Phil seems to get excited about that. He shuffles forward a little closer, touching Dan’s leg with his knee. 

It would appear that neither of them are wearing trousers.

“I could help you,” Phil says. “I’ve gotten pretty good at forcing myself to revise.”

Dan lifts an eyebrow. “You’d do that? Hang out with a first year? Help him with his homework?”

“Well, yeah. Why not?”

Dan shrugs, smiling. “I dunno. That’s cool of you. That’s…” He has to look away, sure that his face is going all pink and daft again. “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” He’s so unashamedly enthusiastic. Dan has that achy chested feeling again.

“Yeah. Definitely.”

Dan keeps smiling. Phil is smiling back. 

Then Dan makes it weird. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Phil laughs. “What? No. No, definitely not.” He laughs some more.

“Why is that funny?” Dan asks, kicking at Phil’s leg under the covers. 

“I dunno, sorry, I’m just—” He sweeps the hair that’s fallen into his eyes again back out. “I don’t think anyone looks at me and thinks: ‘yeah, I’d really love to date him.’ That’s just not me.”

“Well most people are idiots,” Dan says without really thinking. 

Phil’s grin is so wide it looks like it might split his face in half. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Phil rolls forward a little, pressing his face into his pillow.

Dan’s insides are rioting. If he was brave, he’d lean in right now and kiss him. He may not be the smartest about this shit, and he’s definitely not the most experienced, but he knows flirting when it’s slapping him right in the face. This is flirting. Probably even the next level up. He reckons it wouldn’t even really be a risk. Phil would definitely kiss him back.

But he’s not brave. So he doesn’t do it. Instead he says, “Are you tired?”

Phil pulls his face back into view. “I dunno. I think I might still be a little drunk.”

“Is that why you haven’t kicked me out of your bed yet?” Dan asks.

Phil is braver than Dan. He hooks his arm around Dan’s lower back and pulls him in close. “No.”

**Phil**

He’s never been so bold in his life.

Then again, no one’s really given him the opportunity before. Not like this.

“I want you here,” he says softly. “That’s why I didn’t let you leave.”

“Maybe you’re just being polite,” Dan says, matching Phil’s hushed tone. 

“No.”

“You don’t know me.”

Phil says, “No one knows anyone until they do.”

Dan smiles. “That’s true.”

“Maybe it’s a sign from the universe,” Phil says. His hand is pressed against Dan’s lower back. “Maybe it’s fate.”

“I don’t believe in any of that shite.”

“You think it’s an accident you ended up in my bed?” Phil asks. He’s not sure where he’s going with any of this. Maybe he really is drunk still.

“Not an accident. Just a thing that happened.”

“A nice thing.”

Dan nods. “The best thing that’s happened since I moved here.”

Phil asks, “Are you tired?”

Dan says, “No. But I want to stay right here.”

“If you stay, my housemates will see when you leave. They’ll assume things.”

Dan bites his lip. His eyes flick down to Phil’s mouth. “Maybe I don’t care.”

“Maybe?”

Dan leans in and kisses him. Phil melts against his chest. Dan’s lips aren’t soft. They’re chapped, and they’re perfect. 

Dan’s hand slides up the back of Phil’s neck, tangling into his hair. He strokes his thumb beside Phil’s ear. He has big hands. Warm hands. Warm mouth. 

He pulls away. “Sorry.”

“For stopping?” Phil asks. “Because that’s the only thing wrong here.”

“You don’t know me,” Dan says again. 

“I want to.”

“You won’t like me when you know me.”

Phil presses his forehead against Dan’s. “Maybe you should let me be the judge of that.”

“No one likes me when they know me.”

“You just told me no one knows you,” Phil says. “They don’t know the real you. I already know you better.”

“Fuck.” Dan closes his eyes. “You might actually be right about that.”

Phil asks, “Do you want to leave?”

“No.” He swallows, hard. “But I think I should.”

“Why?”

Dan pulls away from him then, rolling onto his back and covering his face with his hands. “Because.”

He doesn’t elaborate.

Phil’s stomach sinks, but the lingering buzz of alcohol and the taste of Dan’s lips has him clinging to his bravery. “Meet me later,” he says. “We’ll be wearing clothes. I won’t touch you.”

“Where?” Dan asks, face still hidden by what Phil can’t help but notice are absolutely massive hands. 

“Library,” Phil says. “I’ve got a paper to write. You can bring your laptop. We’ll just be students.”

Dan drops one hand to look at Phil. “That’s it?”

“If that’s all you want.”

“This has nothing to do with what I _want_.”

Phil says, “I understand,” even though he doesn’t. Dan sits up, so Phil does too.

“I’m sorry,” Dan says. “I’m an actual train wreck of a human being.” He gets off the bed and he’s only wearing a pair of pants and Phil doesn’t look away. 

Dan finds his clothes by the side of the bed. He pulls on a pair of very tight jeans and Phil still hasn’t looked away. He pulls on his shirt and his hair is a mess and Phil reckons he’s never seen anyone so gorgeous and every cell in his body screams at him to say something, do something, anything to stop this person he’s desperate to know from walking out of his life for good. 

Dan walks to the door. His hand is on the knob. 

Phil says, “I’ll be at the library all day. Come join me later.”

Dan doesn’t say he will.

But he doesn’t say he won’t. He just smiles and says, “Bye Phil.”

**Dan**

If he didn’t hate himself before today, he’s certainly taken care of that now.

He did, anyway. Hate himself. A whole lot actually. But now it’s definitely worse.

He kissed Phil! He actually did that. And it was amazing, by far the best kiss he’s ever had and there wasn’t even tongue. 

And then he promptly went and fucked it all to hell. 

He’s walking back to campus from Phil’s. He’s not even sure he knows the way, but he’s not got money enough for a taxi and his phone is dead, so he can’t ring anyone to come pick him up. Not that he knows anyone with a car. Or really knows anyone at all besides the five or six people from halls, and, in theory, a few people from lectures.

It doesn’t matter. He’s got nothing but time. Time and a pounding skull and the question in his head of why he is the way he is. Why, when he’s handed something good for once in his life, did he feel the need to immediately dump gasoline on it and set it alight.

He didn’t even leave Phil his mobile number.

It’s just this fear. This ever present dark cloud, following him like a shadow. This threat of impending doom, like if anyone finds out what he is, things will be like they were at Forest. His fresh start will be caked in mud, and he’ll never be able to escape the jabs and taunts of assholes who single him out for being different. 

Phil practically begged him to stay. Phil doesn’t care that he’s bi or gay or queer or whatever the fuck he is. Phil’s gay too. Phil wants to kiss him. Phil couldn’t look away from Dan’s body whenever Dan let him get a glimpse of it. He hadn’t missed that, Phil’s eyes on his chest. He may hate himself to the core of his being but he’s not stupid. He knows he’s passably attractive, and Phil liked what he was seeing.

Basically, there’s no reason to be scared of Phil. And he isn’t. Not really. Just of the implications of being with Phil. 

He said he didn’t care about Phil’s housemates assuming things. He said it, and he wanted it to be true. He wanted it badly enough that for a few minutes, he convinced himself it _was_ true. 

He still wants it to be true. Maybe… maybe he could keep trying. Maybe he’ll haul a backpack of legal textbooks and his laptop and two cups of coffee over to the library this afternoon and keep trying. It’s not like he’s got anything better to do. 

**Phil**

He lies in bed staring at the ceiling for twenty minutes after Dan leaves. He doesn’t move from that position, starfished on the mattress staring up at the yellowed paint of a room that’s been slept in by god knows how many students over the years.

He does that for twenty minutes, feeling sorry for himself. He thinks of Dan walking away and allows himself to be sad about it.

Then he remembers Dan’s long lean body and the color of his nipples and the way his lips were dry and eager and the way he looked at Phil’s mouth. He remembers those things and has a wank about it before rolling over and going back to sleep.

He wakes up a few hours later, half convinced the whole thing was a dream. He gets up and showers and gets dressed. He packs his backpack with his laptop and charger and a few books, then heads out. He’s already itching under his skin wondering whether or not Dan is going to show up at the library or not.

If he doesn’t, Phil’s actually screwed. He never got Dan’s number or a last name. He can’t ring or text or email or even Facebook stalk. 

The thought makes him nauseous, but he tries to push it away. He’s got a coffee shop to visit and pastries to buy and a paper to write. That’s his plan for the day. That’s what he has control over right now: drinking a coffee and eating a scone and writing a paper about the evolution of visual effects in American horror films from the eighties to present. 

He eats the scone in three bites and necks the coffee on the walk from the cafe to the library, since the fascists who run the place don’t allow food or drink inside. Almost as if spilling on books could ruin them? Ridiculous. 

He doesn’t even need the books. Mostly he just needs a place that’s relatively quiet where he doesn’t get good cell phone reception and there’s no bed for him to fall asleep on. It doesn’t guarantee that he’s going to get anything done, but he’s got a much better shot of it here than he does at home, in a house full of hungover people. In a house trashed by a particularly rowdy party last night. Now that he thinks about it, it’s kind of a wonder the police weren’t called. Almost like everything was meant to go exactly a certain way so that he and Dan would end up in the same bed all night.

He pushes thoughts of fate and destiny out of his mind. He cringes to think he actually posited that theory to Dan. No wonder the bloke ran away as fast as he could. They’d known each other all of half an hour before Phil was basically declaring them soulmates. 

He finds a table in a quiet, unoccupied corner of the library. He likes it here. It’s clean and there’s an ugly design in the carpet and it smells like old books. It’s been the site of many a peaceful reprieve from the craziness of student housing, whether he ends up getting much work done or not.

Today he’s determined. He needs to take his mind off of hoping Dan’s going to show up. 

And, you know. Write his paper.

And he does. He manages to compartmentalize everything that isn’t academic achievement, and ends up doing all his research and writing out the bare bones of his main arguments. 

It’s been hours. So many hours, in fact, that he’s fairly convinced Dan isn’t coming. He’s hungry, and he needs a wee badly, but he doesn’t want to leave from this spot. What if Dan happened to choose that moment to show up? What if he got here and assumed Phil had blown him off?

Phil sits there for another half hour, plugging some research into his paper. Dan doesn’t show up.

Phil watches Smosh videos for another half hour. His bladder is threatening mutiny. Dan doesn’t show up.

Phil puts his things in his backpack and runs to the toilet, has the world’s fastest pee, and runs back to his table. Dan isn’t there, so Phil walks around the whole library just to make sure Dan isn’t waiting in the opposite corner of the building. 

He isn’t there. Phil checks the time on his phone. It isn’t even afternoon anymore. It’s evening now, and all he’s eaten all day is a bloody scone, and he’s feeling more hungover now than he did when he woke up, and maybe he actually did imagine the whole thing. That would make more sense. He’d dreamed up a hot guy who was into him because he was drunk and lonely. And now he’s wandering around the library looking for someone who doesn’t exist.

He knows that’s not true. But it soothes the ragged edges of his bruised self esteem to pretend he’s just gone temporarily mad. 

He doesn’t even stop anywhere for food on the way back home. He kind of just wants to crawl into bed and have a little cry. 

When he gets home, there’s someone waiting for him.

**Dan**

He’d been stood on the stoop for close to twenty minutes, hands sweating, heart pounding, not knowing whether or not he should ring the bell when - there Phil was, on the wrong side of the door. 

“Dan?”

Dan holds out his hands as if to say ‘yep, it’s me, sorry about it.’

Phil smiles. God, he’s cute. His eyes go squinty when he smiles for real. 

“You’re here.”

“Yeah,” Dan says, then clears his throat of the scratchiness of disuse. “Are you just getting back from the library?”

“Um. Maybe?”

“Please don’t tell me you were waiting all day.” The thought makes him feel ill with guilt.

“I mean, I was working on my paper also.”

“Fuck,” Dan says under his breath. “I fell asleep when I got back to my room. I was just gonna have a quick nap and then come meet you, but then I woke up and it was nearly four and I thought for sure you wouldn’t still be waiting so—”

He cuts himself off. Phil is smiling again. 

“What?” Dan asks.

Phil shakes his head. “Sorry. I’m just.” He hitches his bag up higher on his shoulder. “I’m glad you came.”

“You must have thought I was the world’s biggest cunt to stand you up like that.”

“Dan, no. Of course not.” He looks genuinely distressed. “I was disappointed. But I wouldn’t think badly of you if you didn’t want to hang out with me. It’s not like you agreed to meet me anyway. I was the one being pushy.”

Dan pulls out his mobile. “You should give me your number so this doesn’t happen again.”

Phil smiles. Again. “So you think there’s gonna be a next time?”

He hands his phone to Phil. “You got so many friends you couldn’t use one more?”

Phil cocks an eyebrow. “Oh. Friends, yeah?” He looks away from Dan’s eyes and down to where he’s putting his number into Dan’s contacts. 

Dan’s stomach swoops a little remembering the way his day started. Remembering Phil’s lips and how plush they were. Friends is definitely not all he wants to be, but bravery feels a lot harder in the light of day. “Um. Maybe… to start?”

Phil nods, handing Dan’s phone back. “Well, friend. Now you’ve got my number.”

Dan types out a quick text and sends it off before he can second guess it: _friends kiss each other sometimes right?_ Typing words feels a whole hell of a lot less scary than saying them, and now Phil has his number. Two birds with one shaky-handed stone.

Phil is full on grinning ear to ear as he types out a response.

Dan’s heart is doing somersaults in his chest as his phone buzzes. _Hell yeah they do._ He looks up at Phil, sure his cheeks are pink but not much caring.

“Do you wanna get food with me?” Phil asks. “I’m starving.”

“Yes,” Dan says, pocketing his phone. “Definitely.”

-

They end up at a pizza place. It’s cheap and close to campus, which means it’s practically swarming with other students, but Dan doesn’t care. It’s not like it’s a date. Guys can get food together. 

About twenty minutes into sitting at a cramped booth shoving pizza into his face and watching Phil do the same, it feels a little like a date. Phil keeps asking him questions about his hometown and his classes and his hobbies, and he actually seems to care about the answers. He listens when Dan talks. 

And Dan talks a lot. Because being listened to is kind of intoxicating. It’s addictive to see the blue of Phil’s eyes trained so unblinkingly on him as he prattles on about everything and nothing. 

It feels like a date. The best date Dan’s ever been on, not that he’s been on that many. 

He feels like he’s floating. Phil is well gorgeous, like exactly the type of guy Dan would want to date if he got to have a choice. His shoulders are almost obscenely broad without being hench and obnoxious, and his arms are nice and his shirt hugs his chest almost like it’s a touch too small but it’s perfect because it means Dan can see the shape of him underneath it and it’s really reaffirming to Dan just how much he’s definitely not straight, as much as he tried to pretend he was ever since puberty stamped the dreaded G word on the inside of his brain. Hell, Phil even likes Muse.

It feels too good to be true. Which means Dan is absolutely going to screw it up sooner or later. 

Suddenly Phil leans across the table, reaching out to touch Dan’s earlobe. He rubs it gently, toying with the stud, and Dan’s heart fully stops for a moment.

Phil pulls his hand away quickly. “Sorry.” He smiles sheepishly. “It just looks so cool.”

All Dan can do is shake his head. Surely at least one person saw that, and he can’t find it in himself to give a fuck. 

In fact, he really fucking liked it. Phil just reached out and touched him for no reason other than because he wanted to. In a restaurant full of people, some of whom he may even know. They’re out in the open and Phil touched him in a way Dan’s fairly sure would be unusual for friends, and he isn’t ashamed about it. 

Dan's heart is absolutely hammering. It feels like a moment much bigger than the sum of its parts. It feels like some kind of revelation. He’s never been touched by a bloke in a way that wasn’t meant to remain behind closed doors. Never. 

He could get used to it. 

**Phil**

Dan’s got a spot of pink low on his cheek, right above his jawline. It’s in the shape of a triangle and it’s all Phil can do not to grab the guy’s shirt and pull him across the table for a big sloppy kiss. 

He has pierced ears. Phil’s not sure how he missed that this morning, but god, it’s hot. So hot he couldn’t help reaching out and touching him even though Dan was pretty clear that he’s got boundaries and he’s fully in the closet and Phil shouldn’t just be touching him whenever the bloody hell he feels like it. But he’s pretty sure that rosy triangle means Dan’s not upset, and he becomes even more sure when he feels Dan’s foot run up the inside of his calf. It’s a brief touch, but Phil’s not stupid enough not to realize that it means something.

He smiles at Dan. He can’t stop smiling. He must look like a fool, but he can’t stop. He hasn’t felt this happy, this _giddy_ in ages. Walking home from the library he’d been utterly convinced that the morning he spent with Dan would be the only time he got, so to be here now eating inordinate amounts of pizza and getting to hear the guy’s stories and make him laugh and smile and _blush_ just feels unreal. 

“Did it hurt?” Phil asks. He needs to say something so he’s not just sitting there looking all soppy.

“Not really.”

“I’m a wimp with pain,” Phil admits. “But you’re making me think I should do it.”

Dan cocks his head to the side. Then he nods. “You’d pull them off nicely.”

Phil has a thought then. “Do you have any hidden tattoos?”

“I’m not that cool.”

“Me neither. My mum would actually murder me, probably.”

“All the more reason?” Dan asks. “Rebellion and all that.”

“Oh. I dunno,” Phil says. “I get on quite well with mine. I guess I’m not the rebellious type.” He feels like a giant loser, but Dan just smiles.

“That’s cute.”

“Is it?” 

Dan nods. “I’m not really, either. I just wish I was. I’m more the swallow my feelings type. I don’t argue, I just avoid.”

“I’m sorry,” Phil says quietly. 

“Nothing to apologize for,” Dan says. “I’m just glad I don’t have to live with my parents anymore. I don’t love my classes but I fucking love not being in Reading.”

“Have you joined any clubs yet?”

Dan makes a horrified face. “Are you taking the piss?”

Phil laughs. “What? No! Why?”

“I’m like, a super mega introvert,” Dan says. “I’d rather eat my own ass than voluntarily join a club.”

Phil laughs some more. “Oh my gosh, Dan. That’s… that’s just…”

Dan smirks. 

“I signed up for a whole bunch of clubs when I first got here,” Phil says, trying hard not to picture anything to do with Dan’s naked ass. “I never actually had the balls to show up at any of them, but I wish I had.”

Dan crinkles his nose. “Why would you want to?”

“To make friends!”

“Eh. Sounds like a lot of work.”

“Says the bloke who was sleeping in a stranger’s bed at a house party at two in the morning.”

“That girl said I could!”

“I’m not complaining!” Phil shouts back. “It just doesn’t fit with your assertion of ultra introversion.”

“Look, one of my housemates asked if I wanted to go and I really had no good reason to say no.” Dan picks up a piece of crust he’d discarded earlier and starts nibbling on it. “It’s not that I don’t want friends, I’m just bad at making good ones.”

“I’m glad your housemate peer pressured you into coming to _my_ housemate’s party,” Phil says. “I think I’m pretty decent at tricking good people into being friends with me, but to answer your question from before, one more can’t hurt.”

“You’re not tricking anyone,” Dan says. 

“How do you know?”

Dan drops the crust again, leaning back against the booth seat. “I can just tell. I’m a good judge of character.”

“Oh?” Phil asks. “What’s your judgment?”

“You’re fun,” Dan decrees. “Being around you feels good. People respond to that.”

Phil can feel that the smile on his face is well daft, and he shakes his fringe into his eyes a little to try to hide his reaction. “Stroke my ego some more, why don’t you?” he murmurs, kicking lightly at Dan’s foot under the table.

“Don’t… don’t talk about stroking,” Dan says, his voice gone even more quiet than Phil’s. 

“God.” Phil actually has to hide his face. “Shush. You can’t say that.”

“You said it!” Dan is smirking, and Phil can tell how much effort he’s putting into looking casual about his innuendo.

“Not like that!” Phil whisper-shouts.

“But, like… maybe a little like that?”

Phil covers his mouth and shakes his head, not in disagreement but pure unadulterated disbelief at the turn his day has taken. It’s been an absolute rollercoaster. “You’re awful.”

“You like it,” Dan says. 

“Definitely not saying I don’t like it.”

They share an interminable moment of eye contact, and Phil doesn’t have any proof, but he feels in his bones that Dan won’t be walking away from him again. 

“What are you doing tonight?” Dan asks.

“Whatever you are,” Phil answers.

“What would you be doing if you weren’t hanging out with me?”

Phil thinks about it for a moment. “Either being dragged out by my housemates to a horrible club or…” He hesitates.

“What?” Dan prompts.

“Honestly? Hiding in my bed playing video games.”

Dan stands up. “Let’s go.”

“What?” Phil blinks up at him. 

“We’re doing that,” Dan says. “Right now.”

“You wanna play video games in my room?”

“Hell yes I do.”

“You like gaming?”

Dan laughs. “Mate.”

“I’m sorry!” Phil says, standing up and gathering their rubbish to chuck in the bin on their way out. “You just don’t seem the type.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re hot.”

Dan barks out a laugh. “So are you, you giant wanker.”

“You think I’m hot?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Not too bright, though.”

**Dan**

Phil’s place looks so different when it’s not packed full of drunk people and smelling of cheap booze and cigarette smoke. 

There are still people milling about, a few sat on the sofa in the lounge watching telly, a few cooking something in the kitchen, but it’s the same kind of activity that goes on in Dan’s accommodations on any given day. It shouldn’t be nerve wracking, but it is a little. Phil introduces him to someone whose name goes in one ear and out the other. Dan says hello and pretends he doesn’t feel like he’s under a microscope as Phil fixes them two glasses of Ribena. 

A girl walks into the kitchen and makes a weird noise when she sees Dan, and it takes a moment to recognize her as the one who told Dan where to sleep last night. Phil throws a grape at her head, which is equally as hilarious as it is confusing. Dan knows for sure that his face is red, but it feels okay. No one is judging him for being there. No one is calling him names or giving him dirty looks. Phil hands him one of the glasses and asks him if he’s ready to lose at Mario Kart.

That helps immensely in loosening the knot of nerves that’ve worked into his shoulders. Dan snorts. “Mate. You’ve no idea what you’re in for.”

“Phil’s actually pretty good at that game,” the girl says. Dan thinks it’s sweet, the housemate solidarity, until she adds, “I’m surprised he isn’t making you play Crash Bandicoot,” and Phil’s mouth drops open.

“Amelia!” he squawks, picking the grape he’d thrown at her a moment ago up off the floor and throwing it at her again. “Shut up!”

Dan finds some courage in remembering that all of Phil’s mates already know he’s gay. He finds some courage in remembering the way Phil had reached across the table at the pizza place to play with his earring. He clears his throat and asks, “Is that some kind of euphemism I’m not aware of?”

Amelia smirks. “I’m sure he’ll tell you.”

Phil takes Dan by the wrist and pulls him toward the door. “Come on, before she starts telling you _all_ my embarrassing stories.”

Phil’s room looks different too. It’s small but much bigger than Dan’s room. The bedding is green and blue, which Dan had somehow not noticed this morning. There’s a small tv across from the bed, and a desk in the corner, strewn with papers and books. It’s not overly decorated, but there _is_ a comically large poster of Sarah Michelle Gellar right above Phil’s bed. 

Dan can’t help pointing at it and laughing. “Compensating for something?”

Phil puts his drink on the desk before collapsing back onto his bed heavily. The springs creak under the sudden weight, and he groans. “My life is one humiliation after another.”

“Shut up,” Dan says fondly. “It’s endearing.”

“I mean, I definitely did use my love of Buffy as a shield when I was a teenager,” Phil says, sitting up against the headboard and tilting his head back to look up at the poster. “But I do genuinely love the show a lot.”

“I’ve only seen a few episodes,” Dan says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Never got into it.”

“Blasphemy.”

Dan nudges Phil’s hip with his knee. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about Crash, by the way.”

Phil flops back down and rolls over to smush his face into his pillow. His groan is muffled by the fabric, and Dan can’t stop himself from climbing onto the bed properly and pushing at Phil’s shoulder to roll him onto his back.

Phil looks up at him, hair a mess, eyes so blue and blinding. It’s ridiculous how much Dan likes him already. 

“Hi,” Phil says.

“Hey.”

“You’re in my bed again.”

Dan finds a bit more bravery. “I never should have left.”

“I’m really glad you came back.”

Dan smiles. He is too. God, he’s so fucking glad. “Hey Phil.”

“Yeah?”

“Why is Crash Bandicoot embarrassing?”

Phil scrunches up his face. “I’m going to kill Amelia. Twice.”

“Tell me!” 

“Ugh, fine.” Phil sits up again. “My first year here I bonded with one of my housemates over Crash Bandicoot. We played all the time. Then one night we were playing and she leaned in to kiss me and it turned out she didn’t care about the game at all, she was just playing with me because she thought I fancied her. I… didn’t handle it the best, in retrospect.”

Dan claps his hand over his mouth. “I thought you came out to everyone.”

“This was before that. It was like right in the beginning of first year, the first week. She was the first person I clicked with. Anyway, I told her I didn’t see her that way and she threw a drink in my face.”

Dan snort laughs into his palm. “Mate, jesus christ.”

“I know,” Phil mutters. “I could have definitely let her down more gently, but like… no one ever fancies me. It didn’t even enter my mind as a possibility that it would hurt her feelings.”

Dan makes a disbelieving face. “I’m sure that’s not true.” He can recognize that Phil’s appeal certainly isn’t universal, but he can’t imagine that Phil hasn’t been the object of desire for many a person whose preferences align with Dan’s.

“I was so awkward back then,” Phil says. “I still am, obviously, but back then…” He grimaces. “I’d say I’ve grown into myself a lot in the past four years.”

“That means there’s hope for me,” Dan says.

Phil tilts his head at Dan. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

“Shut up.” Dan knocks his knee against Phil’s leg. His insides are all light and fluttery. “It wasn’t Amelia, was it?”

“God, no. Amelia’s awesome, when she isn’t busy making my life hell.”

“I should send her flowers or something,” Dan says. “If not for her I would’ve probably tried to walk back to halls while drunk off my ass.”

“I’m not that far off campus,” Phil points out.

“No, but I’m new. Don’t know my way around yet.”

“I can be your tour guide,” Phil announces. “York is actually a really pretty town.”

“So we’re like, proper mates?” Dan asks. “Even though you’re like a million years older than me?”

“Oi.” Phil shoves him in the shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dan laughs. “I should respect my elders, right?”

This time when Phil shoves him, it’s onto his back. Phil hovers over Dan’s body, looking as surprised as Dan feels. It’s just the two of them now. No one’s watching. Nothing is stopping Dan from just stretching his neck up a little and catching Phil’s mouth with his. He could do it.

So he does.

**Phil**

It’s the second time today that Dan’s kissed him.

He’s no less amazed than he was at the first.

He’s not sure if he’s allowed to deepen it. He’s not sure if he’s allowed to let his weight press into Dan’s chest, so he stays suspended above him, bracketing his weight on his hands on either side of Dan’s head.

It starts soft, just like the first, like Dan’s not sure what he’s allowed either. If Phil wasn’t older, if it weren’t Phil’s bed they were lying in, if they’d known each other longer than a day, he might do what he really wants and take Dan by the back of the neck. He might kiss Dan the way his body is begging him to.

But the reasons to hold back soon become irrelevant, because Dan’s the one reaching up to grab _him_ by the back of the neck. He pulls Phil down so their bodies crush together. His lips part against Phil’s and there’s the warm brush of wet tongue and Phil’s breath is hot and heavy against Dan’s face. He transfers his weight to his elbows and lets Dan take exactly what he wants.

What Dan seems to want is to make out with Phil like he just can’t help himself - and maybe he can’t. Phil’s good with that. He’s feeling more and more helpless himself. Dan’s hands are in his hair and his mouth tastes like black currant. He’s warm everywhere and Phil feels surrounded by it.

Then Dan is shifting under him and Phil doesn’t know what it means. He pulls away and looks at Dan’s face, eyes wide, searching for any hint that he’s crossed a line without meaning to.

“What’s wrong?” Dan asks. His cheeks are flushed a pretty pink that crawls down his neck and disappears under the collar of his shirt. 

“Nothing,” Phil whispers. He’s not sure why he feels the need to do that, but he does. “Are you— is this okay?”

“I thought it was.”

“It is,” Phil says quickly. “I just— you started moving and I didn’t know—”

Dan smirks.

“What?”

“I just—” Dan reaches down between their bodies. “Needed to… adjust.”

Phil feels Dan’s knuckles against his crotch very briefly. When his hormone addled brain cells scrape themselves together enough to understand what it means, he drops his head and hides it against Dan’s neck in giddy embarrassment. “Dan,” he squeaks.

“I was trying not to draw attention,” Dan says, equally sheepish. “You’re just… you’re a really good kisser.”

“So are you,” Phil mumbles against Dan’s skin.

Dan hisses. It’s quiet, but it’s there, and his whole body goes a bit stiff under Phil’s weight. “That’s not gonna help,” he croaks.

This time, Phil rolls all the way off Dan’s body. “What?”

“Sorry,” Dan says, rolling onto his side so he’s still facing Phil, like he doesn’t want to let too much space get between them. “Just— my neck. It’s… sensitive.”

“In a bad way?”

“Uh.” Dan laughs. “No.”

There are two emotions warring in Phil’s chest, and he genuinely doesn’t know which one to give credence to. He’s turned on - like, very turned on. His whole body is tingling with it.

He’s also terrified. And unfortunately, that’s the one he acts upon. He sits up and pulls his knees to his chest and asks, “Do you need to leave?”

Dan sits up too. “No.”

“Do you want to?”

“No,” he says, drawing out the word. “Should I?”

“No.” Phil nudges Dan’s leg with his toes, because he’s already feeling stupid for saying anything. “I haven’t beaten you at Mario Kart yet.”

“Never gonna happen.”

“It’s gonna happen. It's gonna happen right now.” Phil springs off his bed to set up the game. He tosses a controller to Dan and tries not to wonder what they’d be getting up to right now if he hadn’t had his moment of panic. He doesn’t really give a shit about a stupid video game, not when Dan’s sat right there with his legs crossed conspicuously and his lips kissed a chapped pink. 

But he’d meant what he’d said earlier. He’d agreed to what Dan had asked for, mates who sometimes kiss each other, and he doesn’t want Dan to think that the kissing is the only bit he’s after. 

He climbs back onto the bed and sits next to Dan, leaning back against the headboard. Dan leans back too. The game starts up, the familiar music doing much to ease Phil’s nerves.

“I’m serious, I’m actually super good at this game,” Dan says. “I spent a huge chunk of my childhood and adolescence hiding from the world with a controller in my hand, so don’t be cross when I annihilate you.” 

Phil rolls his eyes. “We’ll see.”

His confidence is quickly erased after Dan does indeed whoop his ass in the first three games.

“Alright,” Phil says, wiggling himself back to sit up a little straighter. “That doesn’t count. I was just warming up.”

“Sure,” Dan says, smiling in amusement. “Whatever you say, bud.” He wiggles a bit too, but instead of sitting up straighter, he moves so he’s sitting closer to Phil, close enough that their hips press together.

That doesn’t do anything to help Phil’s concentration. He manages to win one game, but only because Dan got caught in what he calls ‘the item clusterfuck,’ and even then, he was only a few seconds off Phil’s time. 

“Alright, so you’re a bit good at this game,” Phil admits.

“I can ease up, if you want.”

Phil is about to defend his honour from Dan’s patronizing, but when he turns to look at Dan he sees that Dan is already looking at him with a hint of a frown. 

“Oh,” Phil says. “No. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fun if you’re upset,” Dan says.

“I’m not.” Phil lifts his leg a bit to hook his ankle around Dan’s. His heart beats a little faster even at that level of physical contact, but Dan smiles.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Phil says, loading up a new track. “I only wanna win if I earn it.”

They play a few more games. Phil keeps his leg draped over Dan’s, their ankles linked together. 

He does even worse than before. It’s hard to focus on video game go karting when Dan is _right there_. He’s wearing all black except for his white socks. His jeans are bunched up a little at the bottom so Phil can see a little line of skin where his ankle is and he’s never once in his life looked at an ankle and given it enough thought to deem it attractive but he is now. He keeps noticing little things like that. Like how their shoulders are pressed together now too and how Dan kind of tosses his head every once in a while to flick his fringe out of his eyes and how nice he smells and how long his fingers are and how expertly they manoeuvre the buttons on the Wii controller. 

They’re mid race when Phil can’t take it any longer. He’s in tenth place and it should be embarrassing but he doesn’t care at all. He’s never cared about anything less. Dan’s foot is moving against his in the most cheesy kind of footsie game imaginable and it’s making Phil’s blood pump too hard and too fast. “Hey Dan,” he says, glad that his voice has pitched down with the nerves instead of up.

“Yeah?” 

“Can I kiss you again?”

Dan waits a beat before he answers. “I’ll think about it.”

Phil barely has time to freak out about pushing too hard before the controller is being pulled out of his hands and tossed somewhere to the foot of the bed and Dan is climbing right into his lap. Phil’s heart stops as Dan slings his arms around the back of Phil’s neck and leans down to kiss him like he’s just been waiting for an invitation this whole time.

Dan’s mouth is so enthusiastic. It soothes the nerves away in an instant, so much so that Phil doesn’t think twice about slipping his hand up the back of Dan’s shirt to touch the bare skin of his back. 

Dan likes it, Phil can tell. He makes a soft little noise in the back of his throat and Phil feels like he’s on fire. 

He’s never felt anything like this before. He’s heard countless mates talk about it. He’s watched it in movies and on tv, read about it in books, even seen it in the way his parents go a little dopey around each other sometimes. He never understood it, why the whole sex and romance thing made people go stupid. He’s kissed people. He’s had experiences, but none of them ever made him feel like _this_ , like his chest was too weak to contain his hammering heart, like every nerve ending in his body was sparking with sensation from the outside in. 

Both hands are on Dan’s skin now, clinging to his waist, holding Dan in place like he’s scared he’ll lose him. He doesn’t want to lose this, whatever it is. He’s hard under Dan’s weight and he’s sure Dan can feel it, there’s no way he can’t feel it, but it’s so far beyond his control he can’t even spare a moment to feel bad about it. 

Dan licks into his mouth. He shifts on Phil’s lap and this time Phil lets him. He doesn’t pull away and offer to stop. He squeezes the pads of his fingers into Dan’s soft skin and sinks his teeth into Dan’s lip.

Then it’s Dan who pulls away.

**Dan**

He pulls away just to look. He’s not convinced any of this is real. Phil’s hands on him are a revelation. They’re big and cool, somehow gentle and firm at once. His mouth is warm, and when he bites Dan’s lip, Dan feels like he might be sick with the force of his arousal.

He doesn’t want to stop. He never wants to stop, but he’s never had a kiss so good it made him nauseous. 

Phil looks startled. Sexy as absolute fuck, and startled, eyes wide like an owl and shining blue in the light of his dingy little student housing bedroom. 

“You’re so hot,” Dan says.

“I am?”

Dan nods. “I’m going crazy.”

“Me too,” Phil says.

“Yeah?”

Phil nods. He pulls his hands out from under Dan’s shirt, and Dan’s stomach drops a little. 

“Do you want to stop?” 

Phil’s answer is lightning quick. “No, never. I thought maybe you did.”

“Because of this morning?” Dan asks. He would like to go back in time and kick himself in the balls for that temporary leave of irrational decision making. Or maybe it was rational. Maybe his decisions now are irrational, but he’s okay with that. Whatever allows him to continue what’s happening here. Phil’s got a boner, for fuck’s sake. Dan can feel it. He’s fucking sitting right on top of it.

“I guess,” Phil says. His hands come down to rest on the tops of Dan’s thighs, and that’s almost as good as the back stroking. “Have you done this before?”

Dan frowns. “What are we doing?”

“I dunno.”

“We’re just kissing, right?” Dan asks. “Have you not kissed someone before?”

Phil leans forward and buries his face in Dan’s shirt. “Don’t make fun of me.”

It’s adorable. It’s so adorable Dan wants to scream. “I’m sorry,” he laughs. “I’m not trying to.”

“I’ve kissed people before,” Phil says. “But…”

Dan tugs the hair at the back of Phil’s head very gently, just to encourage him to lift his face up so Dan can look at it. “But what?”

Phil shakes his head, bottom lip caught between his teeth.

“Are we having sex?” Dan blurts. He’s not sure why he says it. It’s a stupid thing to say, a thing that makes him look as young and inexperienced as he is, and as soon as the words have left his mouth he wishes desperately that he could take them back. 

“I don’t think you can have sex when all your clothes are still on,” Phil says matter of factly. 

“Shut up,” Dan mumbles. This time it’s his turn to hide his face, pressing it into the crook of Phil’s neck. He means just to escape from the fool he’s making of himself, but Phil’s skin is right there and it’s radiating warmth and when Dan presses his lips against it he’d swear he can feel the slight pulse of blood beneath the surface. 

Phil’s hands find Dan’s waist again, and it’s good. It’s so good when Phil touches him. It erases all the awkwardness and trepidation that self awareness brings. Dan kisses under his ear and Phil sighs.

“I’ve never had sex before,” Phil says.

Dan wasn’t expecting that. He really, really wasn’t, which is why his response is so deeply insensitive. “Are you serious?”

Luckily, Phil doesn’t seem to take offense. Maybe because Dan’s still kissing his neck. “Yeah. I’ve done other stuff, but not much. And never that.”

It doesn’t even take any bravery then for Dan to admit that he hasn’t either. “I hooked up with a few guys last summer, before I moved here. One of them asked if they could fuck me but I got scared and said no. And I had a girlfriend for a few years, but I could never bring myself to do physical stuff with her.” The words fall out in a rush, burning shame into his cheeks. 

“I wasn’t…” Phil says. “I wasn’t trying to say we had to do that. I’m sorry. The last thing I want to do is pressure you.”

Dan laughs, pushing his nose into the dip under Phil’s ear. “I know. It’s okay.”

“Seriously, it’s the last thing I want.” One of his hands strokes up Dan’s spine so gently it makes Dan shiver. 

“The last thing you want is to have sex with me?” Dan asks. He knows that’s not what Phil's saying. But he’s being greedy. He’s pushing just to see exactly what Phil will admit to wanting.

“That’s— not what I’m saying.” He trails his fingertips back down and lets his hand rest at the waist of Dan’s jeans, right above his ass. “But we literally just met, and I know you’re not out, and this is all super new to you—”

“It’s okay,” Dan interrupts. “I’m okay. I promise.”

“I don’t know how this works,” Phil says.

“How what works?” Dan finally pulls his face back so he can look at Phil’s. 

“Um. Friends with benefits?” He looks so bloody nervous.

“Is that what it is?” Dan asks. He’s not even sure what he wants Phil’s answer to be.

“You said you wanted to be mates,” Phil says. “Who kiss sometimes.”

“Maybe that was before I knew how good you are at kissing.”

Phil’s smile is luminous, and a little goofy. The tip of his tongue pokes out from between his teeth. “Shut up.”

Dan slides his hands up the back of Phil’s neck and into his hair. “I reckon I’m a huge idiot and whatever I said I wanted two hours ago is irrelevant.”

“Yeah?” Dan doesn’t think he’s imagining that Phil sounds hopeful.

Dan nods. “I just wanna… I dunno. Hang out with you. And kiss you. Get to know you. Meet you at the library and eat greasy pizza and play Mario Kart. I dunno.”

Phil is nodding, his smile somehow even wider than before. “Yeah. I want that too.”

“I’ve never been good with labels,” Dan says. 

“I don’t need a label. We don’t.”

Dan nods. “Good.”

“I just don’t wanna do something I’m not allowed to do,” Phil says quietly. 

“I’ll tell you,” Dan promises. 

“Don’t wanna make you think you need to leave.”

Dan groans. “Can we please forget I did that? I regretted it like, instantly. I even thought about turning around when I was walking back to campus. Sometimes I’m just stupid, that’s not on you.”

“You’re not stupid.” He says it with such quiet conviction, as if he has any knowledge to base the statement on. He doesn’t, and Dan is definitely stupid sometimes, but he likes how willing Phil is to defend him. 

Dan likes him so much. Too much, probably, but there’s not much to be done about that. “You have nice hair,” he says, in case his mouth tries to blurt out something even stupider.

Phil smiles. “So do you.”

“I straighten it. Otherwise I look like a fucking hobbit.”

“Really?” Phil asks. “It’s curly? I bet that’s adorable.”

“Hopefully you’ll never find out.”

“I dye mine,” Phil says.

“Really?” Dan tugs at Phil’s hair like he’ll be able to pull the black right off. He brushes Phil’s fringe to the side and looks closely at his eyebrows. “Okay, yeah, I see it. Mate, are you ginge?”

Phil scrunches his eyes shut. “No. Shut up.”

“I would have absolutely never guessed that,” Dan says. “The black is so good. Makes your eyes pop.”

Phil opens them again, proving Dan’s words tenfold. “I wear contacts,” he says.

Dan laughs. “It’s all a lie. Does that mean you have glasses?”

“Yeah, but they’re dorky.”

“I bet you make them look hot,” Dan murmurs. He’s getting lost in the blue, in the way Phil’s looking up at him without so much as blinking. 

“I wanna kiss you again.” 

“Mate.” Dan’s stomach swoops. “You don’t have to keep asking.”

**Phil**

They kiss for ages. They kiss until Phil’s mouth feels numb, and then they kiss some more. At some point Phil pushes Dan back so they’re laid down again, so Dan’s head is half hanging off the foot of the bed and Phil is on top of him. Dan can’t keep his hands out of Phil’s hair and Phil can’t stop biting at Dan’s lips. They’re both hard in a painfully obvious sort of way, but neither of them acknowledge it at all, and Phil’s fine with that. The noise Dan makes when Phil puts a hand on his hip will be wank material enough for a decade, he reckons. 

Eventually Dan pushes Phil away gently and says, “I have to go.”

“What? Why? What did I do?”

“Nothing.” Dan strokes his thumb over Phil’s lip. Phil can barely feel it. “It’s just super late.”

“You can stay.” He sits up so Dan can sit up, too. “You don’t have to go.”

Dan bites his lip like he’s considering it. His hair is wild, and Phil reaches out to smooth it down a bit. 

“Sorry,” Phil says, realizing that asking Dan to stay is probably not the right move for someone who claims not to want to pressure him. “I’m just— Of course you can go. I just don’t want you to think you’re not welcome to stay.”

“Reckon I should make an appearance so my housemates don’t think I died. No one saw me earlier. I don’t know if they’ve noticed or care, but… I dunno. Just in case.” He scootches to the edge of the mattress. “Might be good to think a bit, also.”

“Oh.”

“Just, you know… process.”

“Sure,” Phil says like he agrees. “Been a weird day.”

“Not weird,” Dan says. He bends over to pick a sock up off Phil’s floor and fling it at him. “A lot, but not weird.”

“Good a lot?” Phil asks, brazen in his need for reassurance. 

“Yes, you berk. Obviously good.”

Phil smiles. “Alright then. I’ll walk you back to campus.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.” He climbs off the bed. “I want to.”

“Hey,” Dan says quietly. His feet are planted firmly on the floor, but he hasn’t made any move to stand up yet. “C’mere.”

A shiver runs up Phil’s back at the intimacy of it. He takes a step toward Dan, who reaches out and grabs the front of Phil’s shirt to pull him in between his legs and just - hold him. He wraps his arms around Phil’s waist and hugs him tightly. “Thank you for today. It was the best day I’ve had in ages.”

“Me too.” 

-

They manage to sneak out without being spotted by any of Phil’s housemates. Phil doesn’t care, of course, but he thinks Dan’s probably glad not to have witnesses for what probably feels like a walk of shame.

Phil hopes he’s not ashamed, but he understands what it’s like not to feel ready to let people see every detail of who you are. Who you love.

Well, who you make out with, anyway. Who you spend all evening with in your room, who makes you laugh like an idiot and gives you butterflies just from smiling at you. Love is definitely jumping the gun, but the fact remains that they’re both blokes, and sometimes that’s scarier than it should be. And his housemates are mostly wonderful people, but they don’t always have the most subtlety. The most tact. Phil thinks maybe he’ll have to sit them down and tell them that Dan is off limits for their teasing.

He’s not going to worry about it right now, though. Right now they’re walking side by side listening to the geese honking and making plans to meet up tomorrow. Phil can hardly believe Dan isn’t sick of him by now, but it would seem he isn’t. He keeps bumping his shoulder into Phil’s and doing this adorable thing where he shakes his fringe into his eyes only to immediately flick it back out again. 

“Do you actually want to?” Phil asks for the second time since Dan agreed that they should meet at the library tomorrow. For real this time. “We can do something else.”

Dan shakes his head. “I wanted to today, I just fucked up and fell asleep. I need all the help I can get. If I flunk out before Christmas I’ll never be able to show my face around my family ever again.”

“You won’t,” Phil promises. “You’re too clever for that.”

“You don’t actually know that,” Dan points out. “I could be a huge idiot. We only just met.”

Phil shakes his head, resolute. “I do know. I can tell. You just need… guidance.”

Dan presses his palms together and does a little bow. “Yes, senpai.”

“Shut up.” Phil laughs and shoves at his shoulder a little. “We can be good influences on each other. I’ve gotten better since first year, but I tend to get distracted easily.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Dan smiles, then stops in front of a building Phil hadn’t even really noticed they were approaching. “This is me.”

“Oh.” It’s ridiculous that he should feel disappointed that their time together is ending for the day given the fact that they’ll be reuniting in little more than a few hours. “Okay. Cool.” He looks up. “It’s…”

“It’s basically a gulag,” Dan says. “My room is a cell. But it’s fine. Like I said, anything is better than fucking Wokingham.”

Phil wants to kiss him. It’s pathetic, but he does. It makes him go even more awkward than usual. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Okay, well. Goodnight. See you tomorrow?”

“Yes, Phil. I didn’t change my mind in the two seconds since we last spoke about it.”

Phil sticks his tongue out sheepishly. “Shut up.”

“You said you liked me for me. Which means you have to be okay with me saying things every now and again.”

“It’s okay for you to change your mind, though. About anything. All of it.” _Please, god,_ Phil thinks. _Don’t let him change his mind._

“I guess I earned the constant second guessing by being a dumb cunt this morning,” Dan sighs. “But I’m not gonna change my mind. And you have my number now. And you know where I live. If I don’t show up tomorrow, it’s because I’m sleeping. Or dead. So ring me. Or come avenge me. Either way. I want to meet up with you tomorrow and absorb some of your good student vibes.”

Phil smiles. “Alright.” He thinks that’ll be the end of it, so he starts to do an awkward wave goodbye, but Dan reaches out for him and pulls him into a hug. It’s just a one armed thing, friendly, a hug that wouldn’t be second guessed by anyone who witnessed it in passing, but it still floods Phil’s body with warmth and goodness. 

“Tomorrow,” Dan says after he’s let go. 

Phil nods. “Tomorrow.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Dan**

They slot into each other’s lives with startling ease. Dan meets him at the library and they spend the day distracting each other from getting much work done and Dan doesn’t care at all. It’s still more than he would have accomplished sat on his bed playing Halo, and nothing is better than making Phil laugh so hard that tears leak out of his eyes. 

The library becomes a staple setting for their hangouts, as does the shitty campus coffee shop and the grassy courtyard outside the lecture hall where Dan has his international law class. There’s also the pizza place and a particular bench that’s good for feeding scraps of food to the geese and, of course, the house Phil shares with four of his mates. Dan’s getting to know them slowly, but mostly he’s getting to know Phil. 

He’s getting to know Phil’s class schedule and how he likes his coffee and what he looks like when he’s concentrating really hard, when he’s hunched over his laptop editing a video for his special effects class and his forehead goes all wrinkly from frowning, how his bottom lip gets caught between his teeth. He’s getting to know how deep Phil’s voice goes when they stay on the phone til three in the morning and they’re both half asleep but still somehow unwilling to hang up.

He’s getting to know Phil’s bedroom and his mouth and his hands and his hair and the bumps of his spine and the placement of the freckles on his face. He’s getting to be an expert on kissing Phil, on touching his body in places that don’t feel big and scary. The back of his head knows the softness of Phil’s pillow exactly. His mouth knows the softness of Phil’s tongue exactly. 

Tonight they’re lying in Phil’s bed, tucked under the duvet, fully clothed and cuddled up. Phil’s got an arm under Dan’s neck and they’ve both got a number of pillows shoved under their heads so they can see the television without having to sit up or move away from each other. They’re watching Phil’s DVD box set of Buffy and talking over the parts that are cheesy and stupid. Phil’s seen every episode like ten times if he can be believed, and Dan doesn’t really find anything as enthralling as listening to what Phil has to say. 

It’s a problem, maybe. He’s caught feelings, and hard, but there’s nothing for it, and wild horses couldn’t drag him away now. 

When the fourth episode rolls to credits, Phil turns to look at Dan. “Do you have homework?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Stop being a good influence on me.”

Phil’s tongue pokes out between his teeth, like it always does when Dan’s said something Phil thinks is funny. Or cute. Or stupid. “Never.”

“I always have homework,” Dan says. “And I never wanna do it.”

“We can do it together.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Dan.”

Dan rolls onto his side, pressing himself against Phil’s body and nudging his face against Phil’s neck. “Phil.”

It does things to him to feel how immediately Phil is affected.

“We should do it,” Phil says, though his conviction is substantially lessened. 

“Maybe I wanna do something else,” Dan murmurs, mouthing at Phil’s skin. 

“Mm,” Phil hums. Then, “Wait, what?” 

Dan kisses up to Phil’s ear and bites the lobe gently. “Not _that_ ,” he says quietly. 

Not that he doesn’t want to. Not that he isn’t _aching_ to. It’s just not something they do. 

Yet?

“I don’t think I’m a good influence,” Phil says, pulling Dan on top of him. “I think you’re a bad one.” He puts his hands on Dan’s hips.

“That tracks.”

Phil frowns. “Shut up.”

“You said it.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

Dan opens his legs to straddle Phil’s hips. He’s not going to waste an evening on willfully misunderstanding Phil’s teasing in a self deprecating way. He’s not. That’s pre-York era Dan bullshit. The Dan of here and now doesn’t push good things away. He leans into them.

He leans into Phil. “I know,” he says in a low voice. 

Phil slips a hand up under his shirt and runs his fingers over Dan’s nipple. “Good.”

Dan shudders. It’s humiliating, but he’s comfortable enough with Phil now not to care that he can’t help but let his cards show, at least the ones that indicate how painfully attracted Dan is to him. “Fuck the homework,” Dan says.

Phil nods. “Definitely fuck it.”

**Phil**

Phil has to be more careful. 

This is something he’s learning about Dan. There’s passion between them, a recklessness that burns hot when they let it loose, but this boy on top of him is like no one he’s ever met.

He’s fragile. And bold. He’s brash and brave, then sad and scared in the time it takes for Phil to blink. Phil’s never entirely sure how his words will land on Dan’s ears, but when he gets it right, it’s like cracking open the sun. 

Phil wants to get it right. He’s never wanted anything more, he reckons. Not just because Dan is gorgeous and touches Phil like he’s precious. It’s something much more than that, something Phil has no words for. Not yet.

Dan is special. Phil can see that. He’s a diamond in the rough of his own emotions, in the image he has of himself that doesn’t match up at all to what Phil can see is the truth. He’s funny and incredibly clever and creative and he doesn’t see any of it. He self deprecates to a fault, and Phil can tell they’re not always jokes. Sometimes they’re painted that way, smeared with the veneer of humour, but Phil can see the pain that festers underneath. 

Phil wants to erase it. He’d like to use words, but he’s never been great with those, and this seems to work just as well: taking Dan in his arms, pressing him into the mattress, biting around the studs in his earlobes and saying, “You’re good. You’re only good.”

It’s too much, probably. Too much for what they are, friends who kiss sometimes. Two people bent in a different way than most, two boys bending together behind the safety of closed doors. Phil has no right to how much Dan makes him feel, but sometimes he lets it slip out in whispered words of affirmation and kisses that linger once the heat is gone and brunette fringes stroked off pale foreheads. 

But Dan hasn’t run since that first morning. His head goes stormy sometimes, but he’s letting Phil in, and Phil wants to give that the respect it deserves. In the grand scheme of life they’re not so different, but right now, Dan is young. He’s mostly alone in a strange place where everything is new and Phil isn’t taking that lightly. 

He’s not taking any of this lightly. At least not inside himself, where no one but him can see how much it all means. 

“Stay with me tonight.”

Alright. So maybe he’s very bad at keeping the feelings from slipping out. 

Dan’s on his hands and knees above Phil, hovering, hair falling down into his eyes. He looks like he wants to say yes. He looks like he thinks he’s not allowed.

“I want to wake up next to you again,” Phil says. “I want to make sure you wake up in time for your legal research lecture.”

“I don’t have a toothbrush here.”

“I have one. Still in the packet.”

“I don’t have clothes to sleep in.”

“Sleep in your pants.”

“I don’t have clothes to wear to class.”

“You can borrow some of mine.”

He’s not sure what’s come over him. He reaches up, hooks his fingers into Dan’s belt loops. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” Dan says.

“I want you to, though.”

Dan smiles. “Will you make me breakfast?”

Phil shakes his head. “I’ll buy it.”

“My class is at ten.”

“I know,” Phil says. He does. He’s got Dan’s schedule memorized. “Hence why you need old Philly, here, your friendly human alarm clock.”

“I hate going to class,” Dan says matter-of-factly. “I hate my classes, all of them.”

“I know.”

“I might’ve already dropped out if not for—”

Phil interrupts that thought. “I’ll go with you, if you like.”

Dan frowns. “Huh?”

“To your class.”

“You’ll come to my research lecture?”

“Yeah.”

Perhaps it was the wrong thing to say. Dan is so thrown that he sits back, and Phil feels the loss of him keenly. He sits up too. “I don’t have to obviously,” he says quickly. “Just thought—”

“You’d actually come to my boring ass class at bum fuck o’clock in the morning? Just to get me to go?”

Phil shrugs. “Not like I've got anything better to do.”

“You could sleep. You could have a wank. A long shower. Play Zelda in your pants. Pluck your nose hairs.”

Phil laughs.

“Anything would be better than auditing my research lecture,” Dan insists. 

“What if you came to one of mine?” Phil asks. “Then we’d be even.”

“We wouldn’t. Your classes are actually cool.”

“First year is hard,” Phil says, shuffling forward a little so his knee presses against Dan’s. “And you’re so smart, Dan. I’d hate to see you give up before things start feeling easier. Because I promise you, they will.”

Dan looks unsure. He flicks his fringe out of his eyes, frowning. “You reckon?”

Phil shakes his head. “I know. I wanted to quit when I first got here too. Everything was hard and scary and overwhelming. You just have to tough it out a little. It gets easier.”

Dan makes a little grunting sound.

“It _does_.” He leans forward, summoning up the bravery to splay his hands against Dan’s thighs, thumbing over the denim. 

Dan’s mouth quirks a little, and Phil knows he’s won. 

“I’m _not_ doing homework tonight,” Dan says, his concession to letting Phil do a nice thing for him.

It doesn’t really feel like a nice thing to Phil. If anything it’s selfish. He just wants to be spending time with Dan - all the time he can possibly get. He swallows. “Alright. What shall we do, then?”

Dan smirks, then surges forward to push Phil back against the pillows.

**Dan**

Waking up next to Phil is as magical the second time as it was the first.

Actually, this time is much better, because it isn’t muddled with any guilt or fear or confusion. Phil’s front is pressed to Dan’s back, just like the first time. His arm is wrapped around Dan’s middle, just like the first time. 

But this time, neither of them have to pull away once they’re conscious. Phil’s knees press into the backs of Dan’s thighs. His alarm is going off somewhere to the left of Dan’s head, and they both groan at the sound of it. 

“It can’t possibly be time to get up,” Dan croaks.

Phil manages to twist around to turn it off without letting go of his grip on Dan’s stomach. “If we don’t shower we could probably get away with another twenty minutes,” Phil says. His voice is deep and impossibly sexy. 

There’s a part of Dan, a reckless part, that wants to turn over and find Phil’s mouth with his, to take Phil’s hand and shove it into the front of the pyjama bottoms he’d borrowed last night. He’s got no doubt that Phil would be into it. He’s got no doubt that _he_ would be into it. 

Part of him thinks he should do it. The rest of him knows that he needs to wait until he’s sure it won’t be the catalyst for another moment of panic that he later regrets. 

So he groans and sits up and stretches his arms above his head. “I should shower, though.”

Phil whines, burrowing further under his duvet, but he doesn’t try to stop Dan from rolling out of bed. Dan feels the loss of the warmth and the closeness, but makes it up to himself by having a wank in Phil’s shower. It’s a little better than average, as the memory of Phil is still fresh, all the hours they spent the night before kissing and petting above the belt, the way Phil curled himself against Dan’s back and held him all the way til morning. 

It doesn’t take long. He comes on slightly soap-scummed tiles with his teeth buried in his bottom lip and the promise that someday he’ll be brave enough to ask for more than half of what he wants. 

-

True to his word, Phil buys Dan breakfast on the way to class, a greasy sandwich of egg and sausage and processed cheese and a coffee as big as his head. 

“We’re such clichés,” Dan laments. “When was the last time you ate a vegetable?”

“Potatoes are vegetables,” Phil says shamelessly. “Which means…” He pretends to think. “Last night.”

“We had fish and chips,” Dan reminds him.

“Chips are potatoes, Daniel.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “You’re gonna get scurvy.”

Phil pokes him gently in the belly. “So are you.”

“You should cook for me,” Dan declares.

“Don’t know how. My dad never cooks unless he’s frying some kind of meat and my mum is the worst cook in the northland.” He takes a long drink of his coffee, though there’s no way it’s cooled off enough to be necking it like that. “ _You_ should cook for _me_.”

“The first week I was here I burnt pasta because I didn’t know you had to put water in it.”

“Oh jesus.”

Dan shrugs. “My parents taught me nothing.”

He hates the way Phil’s face falls at that. He needs to try to be more mindful of what he says. Gallows humour about his terrible childhood may be a coping mechanism that works for him, but it’s pretty clear that it makes Phil uncomfortable.

“Also laundry,” Dan blurts, because he doesn’t want to linger in the mood he’s created for Phil. 

“You don’t know how to do laundry?” Phil asks. There’s less judgement in his tone than the words would imply.

“I mean, at home I do,” Dan says. “If I didn’t do it myself, it didn’t get done. It was actually my grandmother who taught me.”

“My mum usually did mine,” Phil admits. “She still does whenever I visit.”

“It’s so different here, though,” Dan says, tossing his sandwich wrapper into the bin on the way up the steps to the building that holds the lecture hall. “I’ve only done mine a couple times since I got here.”

“What?” Phil demands. “Seriously?”

Dan nods. “It’s such a nightmare, isn’t it? Like, there’s always such a long wait just to use a machine and if you don’t stay sat right next to it then someone will just come along and grab your shit out and steal the time you paid for. They’ll leave your wet laundry in a heap on the dirty floor. I saw someone steal someone else’s sock once.” Dan is getting animated, gesticulating wildly at the remembered trauma. “What the fuck was he gonna do with a single sock? Did he not have his own socks to jizz into?”

“Dan!” Phil squawks, covering his mouth. “Oh my gosh.”

“Seriously. It’s probably my least favourite thing about uni,” Dan says. “Except maybe this class.” They step into the classroom and climb the stairs to sit up near the back.

“I have a machine at my place,” Phil says, after they’ve settled into their seats and Dan’s pulled out a notebook he likely won’t write any notes into. “You can bring your stuff over later and use it if you want. It’s ancient and takes forever and the dryer never quite works to get your clothes fully dry, but—”

“Marry me,” Dan interrupts.

Phil smiles a radiant smile. 

“Are you serious?” Dan asks. “You’d let me do that?”

“Of course.” Phil nudges his arm. “It’s really not a big deal.”

Dan feels so inexplicably, deliriously giddy that he pulls up on the front of his hoodie - well, Phil’s hoodie, actually - and hides half his face in the fabric. It feels too exposing to let Phil see just how daft Dan gets around him.

Phil smiles, tugging the sweater off his face and saying in a low voice, “You look good in my clothes, though. Maybe you should let yours stay dirty and just keep wearing mine.”

Dan’s stomach flips. “You should probably stop being so nice to me,” he says, shaking his badly straightened fringe into his eyes. Phil’s got the shittest GHDs in human history. Dan reckons they probably came from Poundland or somewhere equally cheap.

“Why?” Phil asks. He’s leaning back in his seat like he owns the place, and Dan is suddenly reminded that he’s twenty two and completely in his element and it’s momentarily stunning how hot Dan finds that. 

“I dunno,” Dan mumbles. The end of his pen has found its way into his mouth. 

He knows. He just doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to think about how ill suited he is for a guy like Phil. Not that they’re together or anything, but still. They’ve been spending a lot of time together, and Dan mostly doesn’t understand why Phil even wants to. It’s not like he’s bringing much to the table. 

He chews his pen and tries to think of something to say, but luckily is spared when his prof shows up and delves into what will surely be a mind numbingly uninteresting lecture. 

It is undeniably nicer having Phil here. Dan certainly can’t pretend it isn’t, even if it feels like he hasn't earned it.

It might actually make it harder than usual to concentrate, though. Phil is a bit fidgety, jiggling his leg up and down, tapping on the desk with long pale fingers. Eventually he gets bored enough that he takes Dan’s pen out of Dan’s mouth and starts doodling into the notebook. He draws a cactus and a dog and a spaceship and a pineapple before Dan is bored enough with the droning of the professor at the front of the room to take his pen back and draw a little doodle of his own.

When Phil sees it, his eyes go comically wide. He slaps his hand over his mouth to stem whatever his verbal reaction was going to be, elbowing Dan in the arm rather hard. Dan grins, drawing a lovely set of drooping testicles to complement his ink-smudged phallic masterpiece. 

Phil takes the pen back and draws a stick figure to lay claim to the crudely rendered genitals. It’s too small a person for such a big dick, but then Phil scribbles _me, to scale_ with an arrow pointing at the smiling little sketch and Dan snorts. The girl sat in front of them turns around and gives them a dirty look. Phil’s face is beet red. Dan’s heart is so, so full. 

**Phil**

Dan shows up on Phil’s doorstep with a bin bag full of dirty laundry. He’s still wearing Phil’s hoodie.

Amelia is just taking her own laundry out of the dryer, clicking her tongue at her no doubt still damp clothes when Phil leads Dan into the cramped room that holds the washer and dryer. She cocks an eyebrow at them. 

“Reached the doing laundry together phase, have we?” 

“Shut up,” Phil says, taking the bag from Dan’s hands and dumping half the contents into the washer. 

She makes a horrified noise. “You fucking degenerate, are you not even going to pretend to separate the colours?”

“It’s alright,” Dan says, smiling sheepishly. He’s stood back a little ways like he’s not sure what to do with himself, hands shoved into the pockets of his indecently tight jeans. “Pretty much all my shit is black anyway.”

She turns to study him as Phil dumps some detergent in and starts the load running. 

“You do have that emo look about you, don’t you?” she muses. “You and Phil are a perfect match.”

Phil curses himself for never actually sitting her down and telling her she wasn’t allowed to make those kinds of jokes in front of Dan. He’d meant to, but never got around to it. “Shut up, Ames,” he says again. “Don’t be a bully.” He risks a sideways glance at Dan to check he’s not freaking out, but if anything, Dan seems amused.

She picks up her laundry basket. “It’s hardly bullying to say you lot make a cute—”

“Amelia.” He tries to sound stern.

Before she can make any kind of rebuttal, it’s Dan who speaks. “I reckon I should thank you,” he says to her. “Because of you putting me in Phil’s room that night I never have to do laundry on campus again.”

“Until Phil graduates,” she points out.

Phil has never punched a girl and he never will, not even playfully in the shoulder, but he’s fantasizing about it right now. “We both know I’m still going to be taking classes when I’m eighty four,” Phil says. “Dan can wash his clothes here as long as he wants.” He turns around and grabs Dan’s wrist to pull him out of the room and the awkward conversation they find themselves trapped in.

They only make it a few steps before Amelia says, “Oh! Wait.”

Phil’s planning on doing no such thing, but Dan turns back to her.

“We’re having another party next week,” she declares.

“Are we?” Phil asks.

“Yes, idiot. It’s Halloween.”

He’d somehow forgotten all about it. He smiles in spite of how irritated he is with her at the moment. He loves Halloween. 

“Dan, you should definitely come,” she says. She rests her basket against her hip. “I’d hate to have to put anyone else in Phil’s bed.”

“Oh my—” Phil tugs on Dan’s arm. “C’mon. We’re leaving.”

They retreat to Phil’s room. He takes great satisfaction in locking the door behind them and then collapsing onto his bed. “I hate my housemates.”

Dan sits on the edge of the mattress. “I can never tell if she’s fucking with me or not.”

“She’s not,” Phil says, rolling onto his front and smushing his face into his pillow. “She’s fucking me _me_. You’re just collateral damage.”

“Huh.”

Phil picks up his head. Dan sounds like he might actually be upset. “I’m sorry, Dan. I’ll tell her to back off.”

Dan looks at him, his features set in a way that Phil hasn’t been able to study enough yet to parse the meaning of. They’ve become fast friends (or whatever they are), so he sometimes forgets how short a time they’ve actually known each other. 

“She wouldn’t actually do that, would she?” Dan asks.

Phil sits up. “Do what?”

“Is that, like… Has she done that a lot? Sent random dudes to sleep in your bed after parties?”

He _is_ upset. 

Phil hates how much he loves that.

**Dan**

Dan has no claim to Phil’s bed. He certainly has no claim to Phil’s bed in the past tense. Whatever Phil did in his bed, whoever he did things with, it’s not Dan’s business.

But apparently that doesn’t stop him from asking about it.

The jealousy roils as he watches Phil push his fringe out of his eyes. His eyes are so big and stupidly blue. “She hasn’t done that specifically, no.”

“Specifically?” He needs to get a grip on himself. 

“I mean, I think I told you my housemates are obsessed with pranking? So like, she’s always looking for ways to mess with me. They all are.”

“Right.” He flops down backwards so that his head lands right on Phil’s lap. 

Phil makes a soft, laughing sort of “oof” noise and raises a hand to pet through Dan’s hair.

It feels incredible. Dan’s eyes flutter shut. “Am I invited to your Halloween party?” he murmurs.

“Dan.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Okay,” Dan says. “Am I invited?”

“ _Yes_. Obviously.”

“So if Amelia sends some fit guy to your bed—”

“He’ll be sleeping alone,” Phil finishes.

Dan doesn’t open his eyes, but he does let a smile spread slowly across his face. He may not be ready to face what it means that he doesn’t want Phil spending time with anyone else the way he does with Dan, but Phil’s reassurance is a balm nevertheless. 

“Do I have to wear a costume?” Dan asks dreamily. Phil’s fingers combing over his scalp are a goddamn revelation. 

“Yes.”

“Can it be super lame?”

“Definitely,” Phil says. “Just draw on some cat whiskers and be done with it.”

Dan snickers. “Does that even qualify as a costume?”

“It does,” Phil says decisively. “I think I’ve got a headband with ears on it, anyway. That counts.”

Dan cracks an eye open. “ _Why_ do you have a headband with ears on it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Dan closes his eyes again, sighing when Phil uses his nails to scratch above his ear. He would, actually. He reckons he’d like to know everything there is to know about Phil.

-

Phil does indeed have a headband with ears on it, and more than that, he has two: one for himself and one for Dan. 

Phil gets the cat, Dan gets the bear. They decorate each other’s faces with sharpie noses, then whiskers for Phil and spots for Dan.

They are in fact the lamest costumes humanly possible, but Dan reckons he’d feel like much more of a numpty if he was dressed like some of the other guests at this party. And secretly he likes that he and Phil match so well.

Not that he wants anyone to point that out. 

**Phil**

His housemates went all out on this one. It’s the biggest party they’ve had so far.

Amelia spent all day decorating. There are fake cobwebs everywhere, and a couple of pumpkins that Phil had tried his best to carve spooky faces into. Tea lights flicker in the hollowed out gourds, and actually, Phil reckons they don’t look half bad with the lights dimmed.

The amount of alcohol littering the kitchen counters is obscene, as is the mess that’s accumulating rapidly. Phil would be distressed if he hadn’t already dipped fairly heavily into said alcohol.

It’s fun. He’s having fun. Dan has been glued to his side all night and doing nothing to discourage replacing Phil’s cup as soon as it finds itself empty. The truth is he’s encouraging it, and the two of them are really quite drunk. 

It doesn’t make them stand out. Everyone is drunk. Drunk and sweaty and shouty and happy, dressed in varying degrees of ridiculous costume. Phil keeps finding people with cigarettes hanging from their lips and kicking them out to do their smoking in the back garden. His mother’s hang ups have become his own, apparently, but he doesn’t want his house smelling like an ashtray tomorrow. It may be a bit of a tip, but it doesn’t have to be _that_ much of a tip.

At some point he and Dan find themselves sardined together on the ratty old loveseat in the lounge with Andy, who is inexplicably dressed as Princess Peach, tacky blonde wig and all. He’s got a pint in one hand and a face full of garish makeup that’s starting to smear. It’s really rather grotesque, and Phil can’t stop taking the piss out of him for it.

“Oi,” Andy says eventually, when Phil can’t help tugging on the wig just to watch it skew on Andy’s head. “Fuck off, Lester. At least I actually put in effort.” He necks the rest of his beer and belches in a manner most unbecoming of a royal lady. “You and your boyfriend here barely did anything.”

Phil laughs, but when he turns his head to look at Dan, the expression he’s met with is pinched and scared.

Phil’s smile drops, and he sits up a little straighter, trying in vain to put some space between his thigh and Dan’s. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Andy waves his hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“He’s not,” Phil says, but Andy is already peeling himself off the sofa and heading to the kitchen, presumably in search of another drink. 

Phil’s heart is where his stomach should be. His stomach has pretty much fallen out of his ass. He wipes his suddenly sweaty palms against his jeans, afraid to speak to Dan, but even more afraid not to. He turns to look at him again, and Dan is looking down at the Malibu and coke in his glass.

“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Phil says weakly, shuffling over so no part of him is touching any part of Dan.

Dan doesn’t answer. He puts his drink on the table beside the loveseat and stands up, and for one agonizing moment Phil thinks Dan’s finally reached his limit, that he’s realized being hidden in plain sight isn’t hidden enough. 

But he looks at Phil and says, “Come on.”

-

As soon as the bathroom door is shut and locked behind them, Dan crowds him up against it, pushing Phil’s back firmly into the wood and finding his pounding pulse point with his lips and teeth. Phil holds on to his hips for dear life and tries not to make too much noise. There’s music and laughter and shouting and all the things a good party has to drown out a few pleasured groans, but it feels like something he’s not allowed right now, and he’d do just about anything to make sure Dan feels safe.

He wants to say something, anything to make it right. Anything to make the rock in his stomach just a little bit smaller.

But he’s shit with words, always has been. Painfully ironic for a linguistics and English language major, but true nonetheless. So he turns his face to catch Dan’s mouth with his and hopes he can kiss him well enough to make it worth his while to stay. To make the pros outweigh the cons. 

Before too long he’s hard and Dan is too. There’s no way Dan doesn’t feel it. It makes Phil all the more scared, but if anything it seems to egg Dan on. He wedges his thigh between Phil’s and presses him harder against the door. Phil bites Dan’s lip and pulls his hair and says, “Please don’t go.”

Dan pulls back, Phil’s words breaking whatever lusty spell had been magnetizing them. His face is a mess of smudged black ink and deep pink splotches of blood beneath his skin. “I’m not,” he says, backing up until his ass hits the sink. “I’m not.”

**Dan**

Fuck.

Phil looks scared. Hot as fuck, and so, so scared.

Because of Dan. Because of Dan being a fucking coward, as always. 

He’s here all the time. Phil’s housemates see them together _all the time_. They all know Phil’s gay, and surely they see the way Phil looks at him. The way Dan looks back.

It’s not like it’s actually a fucking secret to anyone with functioning eyeballs, to anyone with a brain. 

They’re not together. Dan’s not Phil’s boyfriend. But he’s something. And he likes that he’s something.

So why do the words make his blood run cold?

_Probably because you got tormented for it from the time you were five years old_ , he thinks to himself. But still. He’s not that person anymore. He’s not in that place. He’s here, at York, as far away as he could get from the people who tried so hard to make him hate himself.

Phil doesn’t make him hate himself. Phil makes him feel like someone who matters. He should be fucking honoured to have anyone refer to him as Phil’s boyfriend.

“I’m not leaving, Phil,” he says, forcing conviction into his tone.

“Okay.” Phil’s head thunks against the back of the door. “Good.”

“You look a mess,” Dan says. 

Phil’s eyes go wide, and then he laughs. “So do you.”

Dan spins around and gets an eyeful of his smeary grey face in the mirror. “Christ,” he mutters, rubbing his thumb against the tip of his nose.

Phil comes up beside him, reaching out to turn on the tap. “They were stupid costumes anyway.”

Dan smiles, leaning down to scoop a handful of water onto his cheeks. He scrubs and scrubs until it starts to hurt, then straightens up and moves over so Phil can have a turn. He lifts up his shirt and uses it to unceremoniously dry off his dripping face. He’s gotten his fringe wet and it’s going to go daft and curly, but he couldn’t possibly care less at the moment.

“I reckon you would’ve rocked that Peach wig,” he says to the back of Phil’s head. 

Phil looks up and smiles at Dan in the mirror. “Yeah?”

Dan smiles back. “You’d make a hot blonde.”

Phil turns off the water and stands up, turning around to lean back against the sink. Water rolls down his cheeks and nose, dripping onto the floor.

Dan nudges his legs open and steps between them, dipping his own face down to taste Phil’s wet mouth. Someone bangs on the door then, but they both ignore it. Phil slips his hands up under Dan’s shirt.

“Can we just say fuck the party and go to bed?” Dan murmurs.

Phil nods. “Hell yeah.”

**Phil**

Dan locks the door. Outside Phil’s bedroom the party rages on, but it isn’t even a distraction anymore. They pull each other’s clothes off down to their pants and fall into bed together.

Dan’s touches come on strong and easy. He’s got Phil pinned back against the pillows, arms bracketing Phil’s head, knees bracketing Phil’s hips. His underwear has sonic the hedgehog on, which is absolutely ridiculous and should be unsexy enough to be distracting but they really _really_ aren’t. They’re briefs and not boxers and cling to the shape of him with altogether too much detail.

Phil can’t stop looking. He actually stops kissing Dan so he can look down between their bodies and just stare.

It’s too much. They’re both hard and it would be far too easy to close the distance. Phil’s fingers tremble as he reaches a hand up to grip the back of Dan’s neck. 

“You’re too naked,” Phil says, tugging Dan’s face down to clumsily kiss his mouth. 

He’s so drunk. His whole body feels heavy and warm and tingly and _good_. It would be so easy to let himself take what he wants.

Dan would give it to him. He’s pretty sure Dan wants it too.

Dan cocks an eyebrow. “Too?”

“S’distract—” He cuts himself off to plant another wet one a little off center on Dan’s lips “—distracting.”

“You’re a right idiot, you are,” Dan says through a grin, words muffled by Phil’s mouth still pressed to his. “You’re just as naked as me.”

“My willy isn’t distracted. I mean distracting.”

Dan breaks their sloppy kiss to snort a laugh next to Phil’s ear. “You’re _such_ an idiot. And also you’re dead wrong.”

“Am I?” He wants to hear Dan say it. In as many ways as he can.

“Yes.”

“You’re distracted?”

“ _Yes_.” Dan leans in and bites Phil’s ear. “I’m very fucking distracted, okay? And not just now.”

Phil’s stomach flips. “What?”

“I’m pretty much always thinking about your cock, Phil.” His mouth is pressed to Phil’s ear now, his words hot and low and sparking sensation all up and down Phil’s spine. 

“Don’t say that,” Phil breathes, squeezing the hand he’s still got clamped around the back of Dan’s neck.

“Why not?”

“Because.”

Dan chuckles, low and breathy, sucking Phil’s earlobe. “Oh okay, well then. That makes it all super clear.”

“I’m just… confused,” Phil admits, then squeezes his eyes shut in immediate regret.

“About what?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. Shut up.”

“Phil.” Dan pulls his face back so they can look at each other.

“I just… I really fancy you,” Phil says. 

“You are very stupid, Phil.”

He covers his face. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“I fancy you too.” Dan shifts his weight from his hands and sits back so he’s sat right on top of Phil’s crotch.

That is very distracting indeed, and Phil makes a quiet little yelping sound against the hands he’s still using to hide his no doubt beet red face. 

He shouldn’t have drunk so much. It really does make him stupid. But then again, so do very fit guys whom he fancies quite a lot practically rubbing their boners against his. Maybe he’d have been doomed either way. 

“Phil,” Dan says, taking Phil by the wrists and pulling his hands down. “I fancy you too.”

“Do you?”

Dan frowns. He guides one of Phil’s hands down and presses it against the front of his pants, right against Sonic’s face, the fabric of which is being comically stretched out. 

“Yes,” Dan says. “I do. Obviously.”

Phil allows himself one squeeze around the shape of Dan’s cock before he pulls his hand away. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Dan’s frown is deeper now, a proper look of worry and confusion.

“Because I’m drunk. And you’re drunk. And I can’t take advantage.”

“You’re not,” Dan says, but he lets go of Phil’s wrists. “I want you.”

Phil bites his lip and looks up at Dan’s gorgeous face. His hair has gone wavy. His chest is so flat. Phil reaches up to touch it, to drag his fingers along the broad hairless expanse of it. “When I touch you, I want you to be sure,” he whispers.

Dan rolls off of Phil’s body then and onto his back. Phil’s stomach clenches anxiously, but he knows it’s the right decision. He’s not going to touch Dan for the first time when they’re both intoxicated and they’re on the heels of Dan’s clear discomfort with being outed, or whatever it was that being called Phil’s boyfriend made him feel. 

“I’m sorry I fuck up sometimes,” Dan says quietly. “I’m trying not to.”

“You didn’t.” Phil turns over, pressing himself up along the side of Dan’s body. “Dan, you didn’t. I’m not punishing you.”

Dan reaches up and pushes his fringe off his forehead, leaving his fingers tangled in his hair. It looks to Phil like he’s tugging it at the root a little. 

“Should I leave?” he asks.

“Dan, for christ’s sake.” He pulls Dan’s hands out of his hair and smashes their mouths together so hard it hurts.

It gets the job done, though. Dan laughs, pulling back a little and rubbing his bottom lip. “Ow.”

“You deserved that,” Phil says, leaning in and kissing him again, gently this time. “I’ll do it again if you try to leave.”

“What if I _want_ to leave?”

For once, Phil isn’t anxious at all. “Do you?”

“No.”

**Dan**

They kiss and kiss and kiss until Dan reckons they’re not drunk anymore. He wants to tell Phil so. He wants to convince him that he’s sound of mind and sure of his conviction that touching each other is the right thing to do, but he also kind of adores the way Phil is so dead set on protecting him. It would be nice if the thing he needed protection from wasn’t himself, but it’s not like anyone else has ever given a shit about him enough to do that.

The problem is that it just makes him want Phil all the more. He wants to wreck all that composure, all that thoughtfulness. He wants to watch Phil come undone and know that it’s because he feels something for Dan. Something a lot more than friends who kiss sometimes.

Phil is laid on his back now, his arm under Dan’s neck. Dan is nuzzled up against the side of him, doing nothing to stop the lazy way his crotch keeps pressing against Phil’s hip. 

Phil isn’t stopping it either. It’s like if they both pretend it isn’t happening, if neither of them are actually touching with their hands, it’s okay. There’s some hazy level of plausible deniability.

“I’ve never been hard for this long,” Dan tells him.

Maybe he is still a little drunk.

“Me neither.”

“Kind of hurts.”

Phil nods, pulling Dan’s bottom lip away from the gum a little with his teeth. 

“You should do something about it.” He keeps stroking over Phil’s collarbone, almost absentmindedly. 

“Dan.” The reproach is gentle, but it’s there.

Dan shakes his head. “Not me. You.”

“You touching me is the same level of—”

“No,” Dan interrupts. “You should do something about you.”

Phil’s brain must still be muddled. He frowns. “What… like wank?”

Even just hearing him say it makes Dan’s groin ache. “Yeah.”

“I’d rather stay here with you.”

“Yeah,” Dan says again. “Exactly.”

Phil’s frown deepens. “You want me to… in front of you?” 

“ _Yes_.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Phil seems stymied by that. “It’s… it’s— Why would you want that?”

“Because it’d be hot as fuck. And not crossing any of your imaginary boundaries.”

“You think it’d be hot?” 

Dan rolls his eyes and rolls onto his back, shoving his hand into the front of his own pants and giving himself a squeeze. Phil’s arm is still under his neck, and it’s more of a thrill than he’d have anticipated to be touching himself in a dirty way while Phil is touching him innocuously. 

The relief of pressure on his cock is also a lot better than he’d been ready for. He can’t help tugging a few times, sending sparks of sensation shooting up into his gut.

“Oh,” Phil says softly. 

Dan turns to look at him. “Get it now?”

Phil’s eyes are heavy lidded, staring down at where Dan’s knuckles are stretching out Sonic’s face. “God. Yeah.”

“Tell me.”

“Dan.” He sounds pained. He _looks_ pained. He’s got a hand on himself now, overtop of his boxers.

“Tell me,” Dan says again, because he’s greedy and he wants the words to go along with the visual proof.

“I get it. I get it.”

It’s not the explicit praise Dan was angling for, but the way it’s paired with Phil’s wide eyes and the muscles in his forearm flexing, Dan really can’t complain. 

He nudges Phil with his foot, eyes darting down pointedly to stare at his crotch. “You too,” he says, giving himself a few showy tugs.

There are no more trepidations on Phil’s part. Dan watches his pale fingers reach into the inside of his pants, and though the sight is gorgeous, the urge to lean in and kiss him is too overwhelming to resist.

There’s really no more teasing after that. Their breaths are heavy against each other’s faces, and Dan releases all his desire into Phil’s mouth. The sound of their lips smacking and their hands working is more effective than any porn. Dan’s whole body is alive with nerves, and even drunk as he is, he’s close after only a few minutes. 

“I’m gonna do this to you someday,” Phil says, which does nothing to temper Dan’s urgency.

“You fucking better.”

“You’re so hot, Dan.”

Dan rolls onto his back, eyes squeezed shut tight as he spills over his fist and against the fabric of his underwear. It hits harder than he reckons a wank should, and he only just opens his eyes and looks over at Phil in time to see him hit a similar level of all encompassing pleasure.

At least, that’s how it looks to Dan, and he’s not going to second guess it. He feels about as good as he’s ever felt and he’s not going to do anything to ruin it. 

**Phil**

That was okay, right?

Dan looks like he thinks it was okay. He looks fucking incredible, actually. Blissed out and warm and soft and sleepy, just like Phil feels, even with a pant load of mess.

He’s not sure what to do first. Clean up? Roll over and snuggle up to Dan? Overthink everything and freak out?

Luckily, Dan makes the decision for him. He presses himself up against Phil’s side and hums contentedly. “Told you it’d be hot.”

“I’ll never question you again.”

“You look pretty when you come.”

Phil scrunches his face up in embarrassment. “Shush!”

“You do.” Dan plants a kiss on his collarbone. “Can’t wait to do that again someday.”

“It was…” He’s still got a hand in his pants, afraid to pull it out and reveal just how sticky and gross his fingers are. “The best.”

“I need to start leaving myself a change of clothes here,” Dan says. “And pjs.”

“You can always borrow mine.”

Dan tilts his head up. “Don’t want me dumping my shit in your house?” he teases. “Am I moving too fast?”

“Shut the hell up,” Phil murmurs fondly. “I told you, I like you in my clothes. It’s hot.”

“You’re hot.”

“I’m… a mess.”

Dan snickers. “Yeah. Same. There was so much.”

Phil’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah?” He’s never really considered semen anything but inconvenient and vaguely gross, but suddenly the idea that Dan’s got a lot of it for a simple wank while Phil is kissing him is frankly a little bit sexy. And more than a little flattering.

“Yeah. But we can’t exactly go to the toilet right now, can we?”

Phil had all but forgotten about the party. He rolls away from Dan and sits up, scooting to the edge of the bed and pulling his hand out of his boxers. “Don’t look,” he tells Dan before wiping his hand on the _outside_ of the boxers.

“It’s cute that you’re embarrassed,” Dan says. “Stupid, but cute.”

Phil bends down to pick up the pj bottoms he’d left in a heap on his floor that morning. Then he chucks them at Dan. “Is it cute that this is what you’re gonna have to clean yourself up with?”

“Do you not keep a stash of toilet roll under your bed or something?”

Phil says, “Oh. That’s a good idea, actually.”

“Yeah no shit, mate. What do you usually wank into?”

“I hate you.”

Dan laughs, then hooks his thumbs under the band of his Sonic pants and peels them right off like he doesn’t care if Phil watches.

So he does. Just for a moment. Just long enough to get a flash of dark hair and soft pink cock. He looks away not because he really wants to, but because he wants the moment they get naked together properly to be special.

He’s not going to say that out loud. He’s not sure how Dan would react. The thing about Dan is that he’s almost recklessly bold - as long as the words for what they’re doing remain unspoken. So Phil’s not going to speak them. He can be patient. 

They get dressed in pj pants and t-shirts and risk the derision of Phil’s housemates and party guests to make their way to the bathroom, but no one seems to give a toss about how underdressed they are, or the implied intimacy of their matching sleep clothes. They brush their teeth next to each other, exchanging foamy grins in the mirror. Even when Dan spits and a dribble of spit stays connected to his mouth and it’s objectively gross, all Phil feels is lucky that Dan trusts him enough to see him this undone. 

On the way back to Phil’s bedroom, they run straight into Amelia, who’s dressed as a zombie Powerpuff Girl. She looks them up and down and quirks an eyebrow. Phil’s heart gets stuck in his throat waiting for the thing she’s going to say that’ll send Dan running for the hills. 

But when she starts to speak: “Guess I don’t have to find anyone to send to—” Dan cuts her off confidently.

“Nope. He’s got all the company he needs.” He grabs Phil’s hand and pulls him around Amelia and down the hall to Phil’s room. 

Phil turns back to grin at her and shout, “Goodnight Bubbles!”

After the door is shut and locked behind them, Dan’s next words are even better than his previous ones. “It’s time for you to cuddle the fuck out of me.” He makes a beeline for the bed, jumping onto the mattress so heavily that the springs creak their protest.

Phil giggles as he turns off the light and climbs into bed in a slightly less adolescent fashion. “You’re still sloshed, aren’t you?”

Dan pulls Phil down to him, wrapping his arms around Phil’s shoulders. It’s the most comically literal display of clinging Phil’s ever seen, and he loves it more than he can even process. 

“I just came my brains out, Phil. I’d be sloshed even if I _hadn’t_ drunk three quarters of a bottle of rum.”

Phil hides his face in Dan’s neck. He smells a little less clean than he usually does, a bit sweaty, a bit smoky. Phil has a sudden and wild urge to suggest they go take a shower together, but he’s not drunk enough to actually say it. Instead he just mumbles, “Shut up,” against Dan’s skin.

“I guess I like to cuddle after,” Dan says. “Who knew.”

“Did you not?” Phil asks. “Know, I mean.”

Dan shrugs. “Never really been relevant, I suppose.”

“You said you’ve done stuff before though, yeah?”

“Not with anyone who wanted to cuddle after.”

Phil’s chest feels tight. He slips a hand up the back of Dan’s shirt, pressing his palm flat against soft warm skin. “I wanna cuddle with you always.”

He feels the warm puff of Dan’s breathy laughter on the side of his face. “So you get sappy after, eh?”

“I think maybe that’s just the effect _you_ have on me, specifically.” He’s being reckless with his honesty now, heart too choked up at the idea of someone being callous with someone as special as Dan. At the idea of someone touching Dan’s body and making him feel  
anything but cherished. 

“I can live with that.”

Phil pulls his face from the crook of Dan’s neck and tilts it up to look at him. “You mean you love it.”

Dan smiles. “Reckon so.”

“I hate that they didn’t cuddle you after,” Phil whispers. “But I’m glad I’m the one who gets to do it now.”

Dan answers by kissing him. His lips are chapped as ever but his tongue is soft and impossibly warm and he tastes like mint and his leg hooks around Phil’s hip and Phil is suddenly glad his mouth is too occupied to speak any more words because if it wasn’t he’d probably be making all kinds of promises and confessions he’s pretty sure Dan’s not ready for. He’s not even sure if he’s ready for them himself, but he’s never been great at tempering his enthusiasm for the things he wants, and right now he wants Dan. More than he’s ever wanted anything. 

**Dan**

Drinking is stupid. He’s never doing it again.

Waking up next to Phil should be a sexy magical affair. He should be able to roll over and press himself against that nice pale back with its smooth skin and its smattering of adorable freckles. He should be able to kiss Phil awake and coax him into round two of the very fun new level to which they’ve taken their relationship. A mutual wank in the soft morning light would be a pretty fucking spectacular way to start the day, but instead he’s sitting up groaning and clutching his head against the hangover headache that’s surely only moments away from splitting him in half.

He shakes Phil’s shoulder, too agonized to appreciate the freckles or the skin or any of it. “Phil,” he croaks. “Phil.”

Phil rolls away from the offending noise, grumbling in a way that makes Dan sure he’s not the only one suffering the repercussions of a night of irresponsible imbibery. 

“I need drugs,” Dan says. “And water. And coffee. And food.”

Phil groans louder. “How can you think about food? I think I’m dying.”

“We need food to soak up all the poison we put in our bodies last night,” Dan insists. “Didn’t you say you make good eggs?”

“I’d rather die than put an egg in my mouth right now.” His voice is gravelly and rough, and Dan is annoyed beyond reason that he can’t actually enjoy it in his current state.

“Well get up and just make me some, then.” 

“I just wanna sleep,” Phil wails. “I’m too old for this shite.”

“I’m too young to die,” Dan counters. “Also I’m your guest, so you’re obligated to like, not let me die and stuff.”

Phil flops his arm back to swat at whatever of Dan he can reach. Dan shoves at him, threatening to send him over the edge of the bed. 

“Oi!” Phil shouts weakly. “Abuse! This isn’t how you treat a man!”

“Eggs!” Dan insists. It feels like he’s shouting but he reckons it’s just because there’s an entire percussion section banging away in his skull. “Coffee!”

-

Eventually he succeeds in dragging Phil out of bed and to the kitchen, where they stand bent to each other at the sink chugging water and downing paracetamol.

“I’m too young for hangovers this bad,” Dan says. “This is bullshit.”

“Everything is bullshit,” Phil croaks, looking around at the disaster zone that is his home. There are bottles everywhere, and plates with half eaten pieces of pizza. It smells like cigarettes. 

“Morning lads,” comes a voice from the entrance to the kitchen. It’s Amelia, looking as rough as Dan feels. Maybe worse. She looks not to have washed off her makeup last night. She walks into the room, yawning widely. “Fuck, this place is a tip.”

“We need to cool it on the parties,” Phil says.

Dan sits at the table on the corner of the room. “Breakfast,” he whines. 

Amelia pats his head as she walks past him on the way to the kettle. “Your pet needs feeding,” she says to Phil.

Neither Dan nor Phil have the energy to tell her off. Dan just directs his needy toddler energy towards her and says, “Also coffee.”

She takes the kettle over to the sink. “I’m on it.”

Dan lays his head down on the nice cool wood of the table, and he must fall asleep for a bit, because when he lifts it again, Phil is stood at the stove stirring something sizzling in a pan, and Amelia is stood next to him sipping a hot beverage. They’re speaking to each other in hushed voices, clearly a conversation not meant for Dan’s ears. He slowly lowers his head again and pretends not to have woken up so he can eavesdrop.

“Yeah I know,” Phil says, “But it freaks him out.”

“He’s practically got hearts in his eyes whenever he looks at you. Am I supposed to pretend I’m blind?”

“For now? Yeah. I don’t want you scaring him away.”

Guilt slams Dan’s chest so hard he doesn’t catch what Amelia says before Phil is speaking again. “It’s not like that at all. I like him for real.”

Dan can’t take any more of this. He’s torn between all consuming affection and overwhelming guilt both for invading Phil’s privacy and for making him feel the need to tell his friends off just for pointing out the obvious truth of their situation. 

He makes a show of waking up and yawning and stretching.

“Good morning, princess,” Amelia says, bringing him over a mug of coffee.

“Cheers.” He picks it up and takes a long drink. It’s instant and kind of bitter, and Amelia hasn’t put in quite enough sugar, but it’s still pretty amazing. “I smell food.”

“I’m making eggs,” Phil says, turning to look at Dan over his shoulder. “Some tyrant was demanding them earlier.”

Dan smiles. “Good to know the tactic is effective.”

“I think I’ll keep you around,” Amelia says, ruffling Dan’s hair like an actual dog. “Phil would never make me eggs just because I asked.”

“I’m not making any for you,” Phil says. 

“Ha ha. Are they almost ready or what?”

Phil rolls his eyes. “They’re ready. You look like a melted candle, by the way,” he says, pointing at her face.

“Oh.” She rubs her eyes and then looks down at her hands. “Ah, fuck. Guess I gotta go wash my face.”

“Yes,” Phil says. “Go. There will be eggs waiting for your highness when she returns.”

She flips him the bird as she heads out of the kitchen. 

Then it’s just Dan and Phil. Phil is leant back against the counter, smiling at Dan. It makes him ache inside, especially after overhearing his conversation with Amelia.

“Hey,” Dan says softly.

“Hey.”

“C’mere?”

Phil walks over to stand in front of him. Dan reaches up, grabs a handful of Phil’s shirt and pulls him down enough to plant a kiss right on his mouth. 

Phil makes an adorable little surprised grunt before he kisses back. When Dan lets him stand back up, Phil rubs the tips of his fingers against his lips. “What was that for?”

Dan shrugs. “Being my favourite?”

Phil smiles. “You must really love eggs.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Phil**

“Is this legal?” Dan asks.

It’s pitch black outside, and he and Phil are stood shoulder to shoulder with what feels like half of York’s student body in an open field. The air is cold enough, but the enormous bonfire that rages at the center of the gathering is throwing enough heat to make the chill of the November night more theoretical than reality. 

Phil hands him one of the beers he’d nicked from someone else’s cooler. “Probably not.” He holds his own bottle up. “To Mr. Fawkes.”

Dan grins. “Cheers.” 

They clink their bottles together and Phil takes a sip. It’s the worst kind of beer, somehow bitter and watered down at the same time. He doesn’t care. It’s a party. A party in a field. Somewhere behind them, someone is setting off fireworks. 

Dan tilts his head up to watch the sky lit with explosions of colourful light, but Phil rather prefers the view it affords him of Dan’s face and neck bathed all in shades of red. 

They’d come here with Phil’s housemates, but lost them almost immediately in the crowd, and quite frankly Phil could not be happier about that. It means he can step up right behind Dan and wrap his arms around his waist, and instead of stiffening up or moving away, Dan lets his head drop back onto Phil’s shoulder. They’re as good as faceless out here in the dark. 

Phil feels bold. He can smell Dan’s shampoo when he noses into the hair behind Dan’s ear. “How long do we have to stay here?”

Dan chuckles, a warm throaty sound. “Got other plans, do you?”

“Maybe,” he murmurs. 

He doesn’t say that all he really wants is to lie next to him in bed and talk. It’s all he ever really wants to do these days; get Dan alone somewhere no one else can hear what they have to say to each other. Everything else that happens between them in private is an insane kind of bonus, and it’s too cheesy for him to even say it out loud, but just talking to Dan has become his favourite thing in the world.

It’s a little hard to talk when the sky is exploding and they’re lost in a crowd, but they do end up staying a while, drinking crap beer and roasting marshmallows on the massive fire. They watch and cheer as people burn their effigies, and Phil steals a single kiss from lips that taste like sugar. 

No one is home yet when Phil brings Dan back to his, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. They go straight for Phil’s bedroom, and Phil gets more than he could have hoped for. He gets kisses he doesn’t have to steal. He gets Dan on top of him, a hand in his own pants as he sits on Phil’s lap and brings himself off while Phil watches. He gets the closeness afterward, the warmth and the sleepiness as they hold each other and trade stories back and forth.

Phil buries his face in Dan’s hair and it smells like smoke.

“Will you come to class with me tomorrow?” Dan murmurs, half asleep.

Phil nods. He’s pretty sure Dan’s forgotten that Phil’s got one of his own, but he doesn’t mention it. He’d go to every single one of Dan’s classes if that’s what Dan wanted.

He reckons he’d do just about anything for Dan. 

**Dan**

He’d never been fond of his horrible, dank little dorm room, but ever since he met Phil, it’s felt like a proper jail cell. 

Night is the worst. The light is fluorescent and ugly. It makes the walls look even more of a faded piss colour than they do in the day. He can’t quite tell if the slight buzzing noise they make is real or just something he’s imagined. Whether it’s there or not, it gives him a headache. He’s always got a low grade migraine when he’s in this fucking room. 

Right now it’s not even that low grade. It’s working its way up to a painful pressure behind eyes that have long since started to droop. His whole body is begging him to forget the paper he has to write, to shut his computer and crawl into bed. What he wouldn’t give to be able to do that. 

But he’s procrastinated as long as humanly possible. The paper is due at the beginning of his nine am class, and if he doesn’t have something to hand in, he’s proper fucked. He’s half assed enough assignments and skipped enough lectures that even before exams, a passing grade on this stupid essay is all that’s standing between him and failure.

A passing grade. Such a low fucking bar, and yet one that he now realizes with painful certainty is still way out of his reach. It’s nearly two in the morning and he’s barely got the bones of his argument written. His palms are clammy and the ache in his brain feels like it’s metastasizing down into the muscles of his neck. 

He can’t fail this class. It’s not even his most difficult one. If he fails this one, he’ll fail others. He’ll fail out of the program. He’s lose his spot in halls. He’ll have to leave York with his tail between his legs and go back to his sad brown room in a town he hates. He’ll prove his father right about him. He’ll lose the thing he’s building with Phil.

He’ll lose fucking everything.

If he wasn’t so horrendously anxious and sleep deprived, he might be able to recognize this thought process for what it is: deeply catastrophic. But he _is_ anxious and he _is_ sleep deprived, so all he can think to do is fish his phone out of his pocket and dial the number of the only person he ever really wants to speak to.

It rings four times before rolling over to voicemail. He hangs up and redials the number. It rings three times and Dan’s heart is in his stomach being digested by acid and bile when finally, Phil picks up.

He’s groggy, voice as rough as rocks. “Dan?”

Dan hadn’t actually considered what he was going to say. He just panicked. 

“Dan?” Phil asks again, sounding slightly more cognizant of what’s going on. “Are you alright?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m…” His eyes are glued to the harsh glare of his laptop screen. They’re burning. “I’m freaking out.”

“Where are you?”

“In my room.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” He drops his face into his hand, digging his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. It hurts like hell. “Not really.”

“Can you please tell me what’s going on because _you’re_ freaking _me_ out.”

Dan quickly garbles out the severity of his desperation, not bothering to pepper even an ounce of self awareness or measured thought into his words.

“I’ll be there soon,” Phil says, and Dan reckons they’re the only words that could pull him right out of his spiral. 

“What?”

“Just keep working on it and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Dan frowns. “Why?”

“Because you need help?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Do you want coffee?” Phil asks. “Or Red Bull.” He doesn’t actually wait for Dan to answer. “Or maybe tea, yeah? Too much caffeine is just gonna make you even more—”

“Phil, you don’t have to do that.”

He can practically hear the eye roll when Phil speaks. “I know that. I’ll see you in like half an hour.”

Dan barely had a chance to say, “Okay,” before Phil is hanging up. 

-

Phil shows up with travel mugs of overly sweet lukewarm tea and a bag of Haribo, amongst other things. He hands Dan one of the mugs and pulls a bottle of paracetamol out of his backpack. 

“How’d you even know I needed this?” Dan asks, knocking three pills back and washing them down with the (awful) tea. 

“I always get headaches when I’m stressed,” Phil says. “I guess I just assumed.”

“I think you might literally be an angel.”

Phil smiles. He’s wearing glasses, a sight Dan’s only been privy to the handful of times he woke up at Phil’s place, and even then only long enough for Phil to walk from his bedroom to the bathroom to put his contacts in. He looks terribly exhausted, and Dan almost feels guilty about it, but the relief at having him here, the sheer comfort of not feeling so soul crushingly alone is overwhelming enough that he can’t regret the decision to rouse Phil from his sleep in the middle of the night. It was selfish, and he’s glad he did it. 

Phil reaches out and brushes Dan’s limp fringe out of his eyes. He’s sat on the edge of Dan’s bed while Dan’s sat in his desk chair. That’s how little space there is in this goddamn room. “I’m glad you rang me.” 

Sometimes Dan would swear Phil is psychic.

“I’m so tired,” Dan says. “I can’t do this.”

“We can,” Phil corrects. “We’re going to.”

-

And somehow, they do.

Phil sits by Dan’s side the whole time, even a few hours in when Dan breaks down even worse than before. Even when he’s properly crying and letting slip messy sobbed confessions of how much he hates his classes, how much he hates himself, how scared he is that he’ll never amount to anything. Even through all of that, Phil stays. He catches Dan’s tears with his shoulder and pets the back of Dan’s head and counters every one of Dan’s fears with offers of hope, of belief that Dan can and will get through this and every other hardship life decides to throw at him. 

When Phil says it, he believes it, Dan can tell. It almost makes Dan believe it, too. 

When Dan finishes his paper, he thinks maybe he could start to believe it. Maybe he doesn’t always have to let doubt be the loudest voice in his head. 

It’s half six in the morning and the sky is still dark when he crawls into bed fully dressed, pulling Phil in with him. The bed is patently too small for two people of their size. Phil is plastered up against Dan’s back and Dan is basically plastered against the wall. But Phil’s arm is hooked round his chest, anchoring him in more ways than just the physical.

Dan’s scarcely been more tired in his entire life, but his eyes are open, his breaths deep and even keeping time with Phil’s. They’re both quiet, both awake.

Dan puts his hand over top of Phil’s, stroking over the knuckles with his thumb. “Phil?”

“Yeah?” They’re both whispering.

“Was that too much?”

“What d’you mean?”

Dan takes a deep breath in and breathes it out slowly. The potential is still there for him to dip back into feeling overly emotional and overwhelmed, and he really doesn’t want to. “Do you want to leave?”

“What?”

He closes his eyes. “I’d understand if you did. You didn’t ask for any of this.”

Phil presses his palm more firmly against Dan’s chest, splaying his fingers a little. “I can feel your heartbeat.”

“Phil.”

“Dan.” Phil kisses his neck. It sends a rolling chill down the length of his entire body. “You know how much I like you, don’t you?”

Dan swallows over the lump in his throat. He really doesn’t know how to answer that.

“I’m probably not supposed to say that, right?” Phil asks. “You don’t really want me to say that. But you must know it by now.”

“You can say it,” Dan whispers, so quietly he wouldn't be surprised if Phil didn’t hear it at all. “If it’s true.”

“Of course it’s bloody true. I adore you.”

Dan starts crying again. There’s no way he could keep his composure after a confession like that. At least this time it’s a quiet thing, not wracking sobs of panic but silent streams of wetness running down his cheeks. The feeling that he doesn’t deserve this kind of patience, this kind of tenderness. 

Phil tugs at him, and Dan turns over. They’re facing each other now, the faintest hint of light touching the sky and filtering in through Dan’s little window. It’s not really enough to make out Phil’s expression, just the curves of his nose and cheek and forehead. Phil takes Dan’s face in his hands and swipes the tears with his thumbs. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking, please.”

Dan shakes his head.

“I can handle it, whatever it is,” Phil says. “If you don’t like me as much, it’s okay. If this is too much, I can back off.”

Dan shakes his head, more forcefully this time. “It’s not too much. _I’m_ too much.”

“Not for me.”

“Just the fact that you had to come here in the middle of the fucking night and clean up my mess—”

“I didn’t have to. I wanted to.”

“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t, Dan. I just care about you. Why is that so hard for you to accept?”

Dan reaches up to grip Phil’s wrists. “Because no one ever has before.”

Phil rolls them over so Dan is on his back and Phil is overtop of him, pressing him down into his lumpy piece of shit mattress. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking… thinking I’m bloody terrified,” Dan admits. “That you’re gonna realize I’m actually proper fucked up and you’re gonna get tired of dealing with all my shit. And that’s gonna fucking devastate me because I like you too. So much I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes. And everything feels less terrible when you’re around, and then I start feeling like maybe life is alright and I can deal with it. Then something happens and you see me for who I really am and it’s just so fucking terrifying waiting for the day you’re not there anymore.”

“I do see you for who you are,” Phil whispers. “That’s why I like you. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“I’m gonna fail out of uni.”

“You’re not. Dan, you’re not. You’re so fucking clever, you can do anything.”

“I have all this… this fucking _pain_.”

“I know,” Phil says sadly. “I see that.”

“I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t want it to define me.”

“It doesn’t.” He says it so fiercely.

“What does, then?” Dan asks. “Why do you like me?”

“You’re funny. No one makes me laugh like you. You’re generous and kind. You’re real.”

“Real?”

“You just… you feel things so hard, you know? And you care so much. And you’re brave.”

“I’m not.”

“You _are_. You’re here, aren’t you? At this school, in this program even though it scares you. With… with me. Even though that scares you too.”

“I’m fucking it up, though,” Dan says. “With school. And with you.”

“School is hard. And you’re so young, Dan. It’s not the end of the world, whatever happens this semester. You can take the classes again. You can take different classes. A few hard months don’t define your worth.” He presses his forehead to Dan’s. “And you’re definitely not fucking it up with me. I’m here.”

“Why are you so good?” Dan whispers. “How do you know all the right things to say?”

Phil barks a laugh. “Jesus, Dan. I don’t. I’m just desperately trying to hold on to you.”

“So it’s all bullshit?”

“No, that’s not—” He drops his face down onto Dan’s shoulder. “Fuck,” he says under his breath. “If you want to know the truth, I’m scared too, okay? I’m scared every day that you’re going to get spooked and decide you’re not ready. Or that you’re going to decide to drop out and go back to the south and leave me here without you.”

Dan turns his head to the side and presses his mouth to whatever part of Phil’s face is available to him. “I’m not leaving. Even if I fail out and have to get a job at fucking ASDA again.”

“You’re not going to fail,” Phil promises. “We won’t let that happen.”

“I do get spooked sometimes. But I always come back.”

“You do.” Phil catches Dan’s mouth and kisses it. “You do.”

“I’m so tired. I think that’s making everything feel big and heavy.”

Phil nods. “You need to sleep.”

“After class,” Dan says. “Will you come back here with me?”

Phil shakes his head. “I’ll bring you to mine.”

Dan smiles, and kisses him. And kisses him. And kisses him.

He’s delirious, spent, hollowed out, and he wants to be filled back up with Phil. He licks into Phil’s mouth and tugs up on the back of Phil’s shirt until Phil breaks away and pulls it off. He removes his own for good measure, and groans when their chests press together. 

It’s not enough. Not even close. He puts his hands on Phil’s waist with intent, waiting for Phil to push them away and gently tell him that they can’t do that yet.

But he doesn’t. He just kisses Dan back and rolls his hips into Dan’s touch when Dan slips a hand into Phil’s pants. He’s warm there, and soft still, but clearly eager. He doesn’t ask if Dan is sure, and Dan is glad. He is sure, and he knows for sure that Phil is too.

Feeling Phil harden under his fingers is amazing. It’s transformative. It’s a revelation. 

**Phil**

Dan’s got such big hands. Such long fingers. They squeeze around Phil’s cock without rhythm and already Phil sees stars behind his eyelids. They’re still kissing, but Phil has to pull away and look down. Just a second, just to make sure it’s real. 

Fuck. It’s real. All he can really see is where Dan’s pale arm disappears inside Phil’s sweatpants, but it’s enough to make his stomach flip. 

“It’s okay, right?” Dan asks.

Phil nods and kisses him again. “Feels good.”

“You feel good,” Dan counters. “Bigger than I thought.”

Phil snorts, proper mortified. “Piss off.”

“It’s true.” Dan stretches his neck up to kiss him. “Bigger than mine.”

Phil would be ashamed of the way that sends all the blood in his body rushing between his legs, if… well, if he had any blood left for rational brain thoughts. But he doesn’t, because Dan telling him he’s got a big dick is just the kind of potent ego stroking bullshit he likes to fancy himself too evolved for. But apparently he isn’t.

Phil presses his mouth to Dan’s ear. “Mind if I check?”

Dan’s next exhale comes out shaky. He grabs Phil’s wrist and shoves his hand inelegantly down. Phil slides it along Dan’s stomach, fingertips running against the trail of hair that leads into his pants.

Dan is already hard. Like, very hard. Phil squeezes around him and shudders at the noise Dan makes in the back of his throat.

Phil’s definitely not thinking about size comparison or anything daft like that, and he’s grateful that Dan doesn’t ask. He can’t imagine anything better than touching Dan, let alone touching Dan while Dan touches him back. 

And then Dan laughs.

“What?” Phil asks, anxiety spiking, leaking out into his voice.

“No, nothing, don’t say it like that,” Dan says. “It’s just—” He pulls his hand out of Phil’s pants. “This is awkward.”

“Oh. I’m s—”

“Shut up, Phil.” Dan kisses him so he doesn’t have a choice. “I meant the angle is awkward. The position. It’s hurting my wrist.”

Phil would never have noticed if Dan hadn’t mentioned it, but when he pauses to take stock, he can admit that it isn’t the most comfortable thing to have his hand contorted the way it is.

But that doesn’t mean he wants to _stop_.

So he doesn’t. He squeezes Dan tighter and gives him a few tugs. Dan makes a very pretty noise - and then pushes Phil’s hand away. 

Before Phil can panic, Dan says, “I have an idea.” He hooks his fingers into the waistband of his trousers and says, “Okay?”

Phil nods frantically. 

Dan kisses him. “You take off yours, too.”

Phil doesn’t waste a bloody second, yanking his sweatpants and boxers halfway down his thighs in one go. Dan laughs at him again, but he doesn’t care. It’s a beautiful sound, light and joyous, the most gorgeous antithesis to the night’s tears and fears. It makes him feel giddy. He wants Dan to laugh at him every night if it means he’s happy.

“God, Phil,” Dan breathes, looking down at Phil’s cock freed of all restrictions now. “You’re so fucking fit.”

“Shut up.” He can’t bear the way Dan is looking at him, the way he feels so wanted it makes his chest hurt. 

Dan lowers himself on top of Phil, pressing his mouth to his neck. Phil puts his hand on the small of Dan’s back, trying not to explode at the feeling of Dan’s hardness against his hip. 

Dan starts to say: “Can I…” but trails off, kissing Phil’s neck, his jaw. 

“Can you what?” Phil whispers. The tip of his middle finger is resting in the cleft between Dan’s cheeks, right at the top, right where back turns to ass. It’s obscene. It’s unspeakable. Phil’s never felt so profoundly gay in his entire life. 

“Can I blow you?”

Phil’s brain short circuits for a moment, picturing it. It’s almost a surprise to himself when he says, “No.”

Dan tries to pull away, but Phil doesn’t let him. “I want to see you,” Phil says. “I wanna be kissing you when you make me come.”

He can feel Dan’s smile against his jaw. “God, Phil. You’re sappy the whole fucking way through.”

“It’s your fault,” Phil says. He moves his hand down a little and over to rest his palm more decisively against the curve of Dan’s ass.

“Someday I want to, though,” Dan says. “Okay?”

Phil nods. “Was that your idea?”

“No, I—” Dan shifts a little, and then Phil gets it.

God. He gets it.

They’re lined up now, rubbing together where they’re hard and warm. Dan rolls his hips into Phil’s and Phil has that feeling again, that all-encompassing confirmation that he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be. 

“Good idea,” Phil says gruffly.

“Yeah?”

Phil grabs Dan’s hips and thrusts up to meet the way Dan is rolling his. It renders them both speechless, which is how they stay for a good long while, sweating and gripping each other, trading quiet moans and wet kisses, finding a rhythm and riding it out until every muscle in Phil’s body is sore and tight and the pleasure is threatening to spill over the edge.

Dan beats him to it, after seemingly losing patience with passive friction and reaching down to wrap his massive hand around the both of them. Dan’s body goes stiff, and they kiss as the wet warmth of Dan’s orgasm pushes Phil to his own release.

They’re quiet for a long time, Dan laid out half on top of Phil, both of them damp with sweat and thoroughly debauched. They must make quite a sight, neither of them having the energy even to pull up their trousers and tuck themselves away. 

Phil doesn’t care. There’s no one here but them.

“Should I be embarrassed that the first time we had sex was basically just me humping you?” Dan asks.

“No,” Phil replies. “It was fucking perfect.”

Dan turns his head and smiles. “Pun intended?”

“Shut up.” He leans in and kisses him. He can’t seem to stop doing that. “Was it alright for you?”

“Phil, please don’t be stupid.”

Phil’s turn to smile. “Can’t make any promises.”

Dan’s eyes have drifted closed. “Can’t believe I have to go to class. How much time do we have?”

“Dunno.” He’s too spent to look for his phone at the moment. “I’ve got an alarm set.”

“Can’t believe I actually finished the bleeding paper.”

“I can,” Phil says. “You’re brilliant.”

“I’m too knackered to argue.”

“Good. You should never argue with me, I’m always right.”

Dan snorts. 

“I’m a good judge of character.”

Dan fumbles a hand out to clamp down over Phil’s mouth. “Less talk, more cuddle.”

Phil tries to respond, but his words are unintelligible against Dan’s palm.

“What?” Dan asks, lifting his hand. 

“My willy’s still out.”

“So is mine. I fail to see how that’s relevant to the cuddle scenario.”

Phil snickers, reaching down in an attempt to pull his boxers up. They get stuck at the top of his thighs. His skin is tacky with sweat - and other things - so he gives up and rolls onto his side to give Dan what he’s asking for. 

It’s not exactly a hardship. Despite their banter, he does feel like they’ve just shared something huge and important together, and to do anything but hold Dan close in the afterglow is unthinkable.

Dan pulls the duvet over them and then rolls onto his side so they’re facing each other. Phil’s never seen him look more tired, and that’s really saying something. Dan has the art of insomnia pretty well perfected. His eyes are more closed than open, but the sun has risen enough now that Phil can see the warm brown of his irises underneath those heavy lids. 

“That was amazing,” Dan says quietly.

Phil presses his forehead to Dan’s. “Yeah.”

“Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that,” Phil says. “I’m not doing you a favour.”

Dan closes his eyes. “You are. Let me be grateful.”

“Okay,” Phil whispers. He closes his eyes, and he’s asleep before he hears anything else.

**Dan**

He and Phil are minding their own business in the library on a Wednesday afternoon. Exams start in a week. Phil is editing a video for his special effects class, his final big project of the semester, and Dan is… well. He’s meant to be making notes for his constitutional law exam, but they’ve been sat here for hours and his brain has pretty much given up on trying to properly focus, so mostly he’s just listening to music and _pretending_ to make notes. He’s got his giant noise cancelling headphones pulled over his ears, which is why he’s startled into another dimension when someone taps on his shoulder from behind.

He yanks his headphones down and clutches his exploded heart, turning around to see who could possibly be trying to get his attention since his only real friend on campus is already sat across the table from him, squinting at his computer screen.

Turns out it’s Lucy, one of his housemates. His favourite housemate, actually. A pretty black girl with big curly hair and the most drawling northern accent he’s ever heard. “Alright?” she asks, barely stifling a giggle at Dan’s outburst.

“Gave me a fucking heart attack, didn’t you?” Dan says. 

“Sorry! Just, haven’t seen you ‘round halls lately.”

Dan doesn’t look at Phil. She knows Dan spends most of his time with someone who occasionally leaves him bruises on the neck area, as she’d been kind enough to point it out once when she met Dan in the hall coming back from a particularly enthusiastic snogging session. But she doesn’t know that the hickey-giver is a bloke. He hasn’t been brave enough to tell anyone he knows. 

Instead he points down at his textbook. “Attempting not to fail out after the first semester.”

“How’s that going?” she asks.

“Don’t ask.”

“Aw, Howell.” She claps him on the back. “I believe in you, mate.”

“That makes one of us.”

“Fancy taking a break tonight from being student of the year?”

“What’d you have in mind?” he asks, instantly wary.

“The lot of us are going out. Wednesday nights are free entry at Society with student ID.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be revising?”

She waves her hand dismissively. “We have been. Sometimes you need a night off. So you’re in, right? One last night out before a week of pure hell?”

“Oh. Uh…” He’s already cocked up. He doesn’t have an excuse handy, and she’s looking right at him. He could have said no in a text, but not straight to her face, not without a solid predetermined alibi. She knows he’s not the type to spend all his free time doing schoolwork. “Alright. I guess.”

“Don’t do means any favours,” she teases. “Pre-drink at nine, buddy, yeah?”

“Yeah.” This time he does spare a flick of the eyes Phil’s way. “Can I bring a mate?”

“Course. The more the merrier.” She smiles and waves and walks away and Dan slumps back in his chair, looking at Phil glumly.

“Did you just volunteer me to go to a nightclub?” Phil asks.

“Um. Maybe?”

“I hate you.”

Dan kicks him under the table. “Don’t say that.”

“You’ve met me, right?” Phil asks. “However awkward you think I’d be in a club, I can promise you the reality is worse.”

“I’ll be there. We can be awkward together.”

Phil crosses his arms over his chest and pouts, not unlike a five year old. “You can’t ditch me for a pretty boy with a lip ring or something like that.”

Dan snorts. “What the fuck? You actually think I would?”

“Clubs are full of pretty people.”

Dan kicks him again. “If you really don’t wanna come, you don’t have to.”

“But you’re going, yeah?”

Dan nods. “I like my housemates well enough. I like that they still invite me places. And I haven’t said yes to anything they asked me to do in a long time.”

Phil sighs deeply. “Fine. But I refuse to dance.”

**Phil**

Dan looks stupidly fit tonight.

Phil’s not sure why he’s surprised. He’s not even sure what does it. He’s wearing all black as he always does. His fringe is meticulously straightened as it always is. There’s nothing discernibly different about his outfit or grooming habits, but nonetheless he looks so good that Phil can barely look at him.

He feels out of place even just drinking with Dan’s housemates, sat between Dan and Lucy on the sofa. He’s wearing a red button up and it’s making his neck itchy but he doesn’t want to draw attention by unbuttoning it. He’s got a drink in his hand, a lukewarm screwdriver that he really doesn’t want to drink. He’s nursing it, taking tiny sips while everyone else throws back shots like their life depends on it. 

He hates that he gets like this. He hates that he can’t just let loose and take shots and have fun. He hates the prickle of anxiety under his skin, the way his heart is beating faster than it should and his palms are sweaty and his mind is racing over all the ways this night could go horribly wrong.

There’s no reason to jump to the worst case scenario. It’s not even going to be that different than one of Amelia’s house parties. The music will be a little louder. There will be more people. He’ll have to pay for his drinks instead of grabbing them out of the fridge.

But Dan will still be there. They’ll still mostly be surrounded by other students, people just looking to kick back a little from the pressures of studying and living as adults for the first time in their lives. 

(He hasn’t forgotten that time in first year that his housemates dragged him to a club and he’d very innocently stumbled into a girl with glittery cleavage. Before he even knew what was happening, some guy was shoving him and screaming about ‘keeping his hands off my bird.’ It’s possible that he’s had a strong negative association with clubs ever since.)

Dan elbows him gently in the arm. “Alright?” he asks, voice low and quiet, a voice just for Phil.

It helps. It helps a lot. Phil smiles at him. “Yeah.”

“You look a bit peaky.”

“You look hot,” Phil blurts.

Dan’s cheek goes rosy above his jaw. “Shut up.”

“Did you just say that Dan is hot?” Lucy asks. Loudly.

Suddenly everyone in the room has got their eyes on him. Phil wants to evaporate. He wants to melt into a puddle of goo right here on this stupid ratty sofa.

But Dan is already halfway to drunk, apparently. The blood in his veins is flowing with liquid courage. It must be, because he says, “Don’t pretend you don’t agree, Luce.”

She scoffs. “Too skinny for me.”

Dan throws his arm around the back of Phil’s neck. “Philly here’s got taste. Shame you can’t say the same.”

Lucy looks at Phil. “Are you gay, then?”

“Oi,” Dan says, shoving her shoulder with the hand of the arm he’s still got slung across Phil’s shoulder. “Boundaries.”

Something about their boldness is contagious, because Phil takes a breath and says, “No, it’s fine. I am.” It still makes his hands go jittery, even after four years of practice coming out to his peers.

“Wow,” she says. “I didn’t think Dan was cool enough to have a gay best mate.”

“Yeah, well,” is all that Dan says back.

Phil risks turning his head to look at Dan’s face, and his stomach sinks to see that it’s gone stormy. Worse even than when Andy had called him Phil’s boyfriend.

“I made out with a girl once,” Lucy says. 

One of Dan’s male housemates - whose name Phil had forgotten the moment he’d heard it - whistles. “Do tell!”

“Shut the fuck up, Will,” Dan snaps at him from across the room. He pulls his arm away from Phil and stands up. “This is stupid, let’s just go already.”

-

They all pile into a couple of taxis, and somehow Phil ends up squashed in next to Will. Dan is sat up front, and Phil can’t stop staring at the back of his head. Even not being able to see Dan’s face, Phil can tell he’s brooding.

It doesn’t make Phil feel any better about this goddamn club night, that’s for sure. He should have lied when Lucy asked him if he was gay. Now Dan’s cross, maybe scared, probably worried he’ll appear queer by association.

Phil wants to apologize. He wants to throw the door of the car open and drag Dan out, drag him back to the safety of either of their bedrooms. He wants to be somewhere the world can’t touch them, somewhere no one can confuse Dan about what Phil _knows_ he wants deep down. Phil knows Dan wants him. It’s just all this other bullshit that’s constantly getting in the way. 

Will’s got his hand on Phil’s knee, which is weird. Maybe he’s too sozzled to even realize it. It’s not like there’s any room for personal space in this stupid blue Corsa or whatever the hell it is. Phil knows fuck all about cars, just that he doesn’t want to be in this one, sat next to some lad-y bloke who smells like he dumped an entire bottle of cheap cologne down the front of his shirt and doesn’t know how to keep his hands to himself. 

The club is no less awful than the car. It’s unfathomably loud and it smells like sweat and there’s never a moment where someone else’s body isn’t touching Phil’s. He follows Dan to the bar even though Dan hasn’t actually spoken to him since they left campus.

But then Dan buys him a drink, something fruity and sweet where he can’t even taste the alcohol. Dan looks into Phil’s eyes as he drinks it, his expression intense but otherwise unreadable. There’s no hope for conversation with the music as loud as it is, so all Phil can do is stare back. He downs his drink faster than any other he’s ever had, feeling the rush of it in his head and the tips of his fingers. Then Dan buys him another. Phil wants to tell him not to waste what little money he’s got on overpriced cocktails, but something stops him.

Maybe it’s the look on Dan’s face. Or maybe it’s just that he really likes being the person whose drinks Dan wants to pay for. It feels like PDA. It makes Phil’s stomach feel squirmy, and not in the bad way it’s been doing all night. 

After necking two drinks in quick succession, he’s buzzing and unable to stop himself leaning in next to Dan’s ear and whispering, “I’m sorry.”

Dan pulls back, frowning at Phil. He looks confused. Angry, even. 

He doesn’t say anything, just plucks Phil’s empty glass out of his hand and puts it on the bar, then laces his fingers between Phil’s and pulls him out toward the part of the club where people are bouncing around and gyrating against each other. It’s surprising, but Phil is long past whinging about anything Dan wants tonight. If dancing is in the cards, so be it. As long as Dan doesn’t look at him with that hurt in his eyes again. 

But Dan doesn’t stop. He keeps pulling Phil through the crowd until it thins out and they find a dark corner that no one else is occupying. It’s pseudo privacy at best, but that doesn’t stop Dan from pushing Phil up against the wall and kissing him like they’re the only two people in the world. 

Phil kisses back for a moment, overwhelmed by Dan’s boldness, his enthusiasm. He’s pinning Phil roughly by the hips and licking into his mouth, tasting like the drinks they just had. Phil’s head is cloudy from those drinks, and the darkness of the club, and the way the bass of the music pounds into his feet like it’s a part of him. He doesn’t feel like himself anymore. For a moment, he feels like the kind of person who does this, kisses another guy up against the wall of a shitty nightclub like he doesn’t care if anyone sees.

Then again, he _doesn’t_ care. But Dan does.

Dan. 

Phil comes back to his senses and pushes Dan away at the shoulders. He can’t see Dan’s expression exactly, but he can hear in the way he shouts, “What?” that there’s more behind Dan’s burst of bravery than his unbridled longing for Phil. 

It makes Phil angry, something he doesn’t feel all too often, and definitely not something Dan has ever inspired within him. But right now, he feels used. Like Dan is trying to prove a point to himself. Or to Phil. Or maybe even to anyone who might catch them sucking face in a dark corner. 

Suddenly those two drinks feel like two too many. Phil reaches up and claws open the top button of his shirt. “I need to piss,” he shouts. He doesn’t, but he needs a minute to process how weird he feels without Dan watching him. He pushes off the wall and heads out blindly into the crowd. He doesn’t know where the toilets are, but the club is only so big. He’ll find them eventually.

When he does finally find them, he stands at the sink and stares at his reflection. He looks the same as always. He leans down and splashes some cold water on his face, which helps a little. Before he can fumble around the wall for some paper towel, someone beside him is laughing and handing him a small handful of them.

“Here you go, mate.”

Phil grabs them and uses them, then looks to see who it is.

It’s the guy from the car. Dan’s housemate, Handsy McLad Face. “Thanks…”

“Will,” the guy offers.

“Will.” Christ, how hard a name is it to remember? It’s only four bloody letters. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” He leans back against the sink, arms folded casually over his chest. Again, he’s too close to Phil, like he doesn’t understand the social etiquette of personal space. Or he just… doesn’t care. 

Somehow, it’s just the two of them in the bathroom at the moment. The sound of the music is still loud, but in here it’s muffled enough that they don’t quite have to shout to hear each other.

Not that Phil wants to be hearing this Will bloke. He’d like to leave now. He’d like to go find Dan, but Will is acting like he’s owed a conversation, and Phil’s too awkward to know how to tell this guy that he’s got better things to do.

“So,” Will says. “You and Dan, eh? Is that, like…?” He makes a vague hand gesture that shouldn’t make sense, but it does.

Phil’s heart is pounding. “Uh… no,” he croaks. “We’re just… friends.”

It feels bloody _awful_ to say. And this asshole shouldn’t be asking. It’s not his business. But Phil would set himself on fire before he outed Dan without express permission.

“So you’re single.”

Before Phil can pick up the pieces of his exploding insides, Will has shuffled over so the side of his body is pressed up tight against Phil’s. He’s saying something, something in a sickening tone that’s surely meant to sound alluring, but Phil is frozen in horror. Somehow, despite this being all wrong and backwards and upside down and the last thing he wants, he’s still scared of saying no. He doesn’t know how to do that. Nothing like this has ever happened to him.

Well. There was that one time a really cute guy was lying in his bed after a party. But that was a million shades of wonderful. This… this is a horror film. And Phil is the victim. The throwaway character who dies in the first act because they’re too stupid to protect themselves.

And then it gets worse, because the door to the bathroom gets pushed open and the person who’s pushing it is Dan, coming to check on Phil no doubt. His eyes go wide when he sees the way Will is plastered up against Phil.

It’s horrible. The whole thing seems to last forever. Time slows to a crawl. Phil takes a step toward Dan, tongue too tangled in knots to say what he should be saying. Whatever that is. 

But it doesn’t matter anyway, because then Dan is just… gone.

**Dan**

The air is cold. It hits Dan’s face like a slap as he leaves the club, but he welcomes it. It helps clear his head a little. He decides to walk back to campus. It’ll take a while, but he’d rather not still be tipsy when he gets in. And he could use the time to think. 

And he spent all the cash he had on drinks for him and Phil. 

His mobile is ringing in his pocket. He doesn’t answer it. It’s obviously Phil, and Dan just not quite ready for that conversation. He shoves his hands in his pockets and picks up the pace until he’s practically jogging. He really, genuinely does not want Phil to run after him.

He’s not going to go to sleep tonight without speaking to Phil. He’s going to ring Phil back, but not before he’s walked the hour or so it’ll take to get back to halls. Not until he’s stripped his clothes off and climbed into bed and let his pillow catch a few tears. 

Nothing is breaking tonight. He knows Phil wasn’t hooking up with Will in the toilets on student night at a shit club. There’s no doubt in his mind about that. He knows Phil. He’s spent the past two months getting to witness exactly how devoted Phil is to being the best person Dan’s ever known. He wouldn’t throw that away for a cheap fuck in a bathroom with someone he doesn’t even know.

The real surprise is that apparently Will is not as terminally straight as he lets on. And Dan can’t even be pissed off about him trying to pull Phil, because according to Lucy, he’s just Dan’s ‘gay best mate.’ 

That’s the part that hurts the most. He’s got no claim on Phil, at least not to any outside observer. And he only has himself to blame for that. 

His phone rings again. He pulls it out and rejects the call, but opens up his messages and types out a text that he sends off quickly: _it’s okay i’m walking back to halls i’ll ring you when i get in_

_just need some time to think_

He doesn’t wait for a response before powering the phone off completely and slipping it back into the pocket of his jacket. He knows if the shoe were on the other foot and he couldn’t get in touch with Phil he’d be fully going insane, and he does feel bad about punishing Phil for something that is entirely someone else’s fault, but he also knows that if he picks up Phil’s call now, the chances of him spewing something fiery and fueled by jealousy are pretty much a sure thing.

Because _fuck_ he’s jealous. He was already feeling it before he walked into the toilet to find Will practically sat in Phil’s lap. It’s cutting him somewhere deep. He’s always been the type, but this is something beyond. 

The decision is already made. In truth, it was probably made a long time ago, but there’s no ignoring it anymore. He can’t keep pushing it to the side. He has to do the scary thing now, the thing that’s always been easier to repress than not, because now it’s not easier. Now it’s killing him, and he doesn’t want to die. 

**Phil**

He takes a taxi home, after pacing around outside trying not to sick up on the pavement. After ringing Dan what felt like a hundred times, desperate to explain himself. Will came outside looking apologetic, and Phil shouted at him. Actually genuinely shouted at him to leave him alone. He’ll feel bad about it later.

God. There’s so much he’s going to feel bad about later.

Then Dan texted him, and it wasn’t the anger Phil had been expecting, and… it helped. A little. So he rang for a car and went home, head spinning as he leaned it against the cool glass of the window and watched the blur of passing cars.

He ignored the people sat on the sofa in the lounge who called out to him as he passed by on the way to his bedroom. He didn’t even actually see who it was, just mumbled something about being tired and then kicked the door behind him harder than he meant to. 

He’s sat up in bed fully dressed with his mobile in his hand when it finally rings a few hours later. 

He answers embarrassingly fast. “Dan.”

“Hey.” He sounds so calm. It’s almost more jarring than it would be if he were shouting obscenities.

“I wasn’t doing anything. I would never—”

“Phil, I know.”

“Yeah, but— I’m so sorry, Dan, it all happened so fast and I was a bit drunk and it just shocked me a bit, like—”

“You don’t have to explain,” Dan says. “I’ve met guys like Will. Too fucking many.”

Phil’s stomach twists. “How d'you mean?”

“Guys who’ll talk nonstop about girls and then the second they can get you alone…” 

Phil feels sick. He’s felt sick for hours, but picturing guys like that putting their hands on Dan is too much. “I should’ve shoved him off me immediately,” Phil says quietly. “But he asked if you and I were together and I didn’t want to… I didn’t know what you’d want me to say, so I said no and I guess he took that as an invitation…”

“Fuck him,” Dan growls. 

“Dan.” Phil’s voice cracks a little, so he clears his throat. “Please tell me I didn’t ruin everything.”

“You didn’t do anything, Phil.”

“Dan.” His throat is tight. He’s going to cry. He can’t fucking cry.

“I just… I reckon I need a few days.”

“What? No.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I just need to like… sort through some shit in my head.”

The panic that’s been simmering in his gut all night explodes. “Dan, no, please. Nothing has changed. I didn’t tell Will about you. I didn’t do anything with him and I never would. I only want you and I’ll do whatever you need. I don’t wanna lose you, Dan, I don’t care if you never want to tell people. I’ll never freeze up like that again, I promise, I just got scared but next time I won’t, please don’t—”

“Phil.” Now Dan’s voice is cracking too. “Please don’t apologize. Just… fuck. Please don’t. Literally nothing is ever your fault. It’s me. It’s always me.”

“Dan. You’re the best. You’re the best person in the world.”

Dan doesn’t say anything, and Phil can hear now that he’s crying.

“Can I come see you?” Phil asks.

“No.” Dan takes a heaving breath in and blows it out noisily into the phone. “I’m a mess. I need time.”

“Please don’t break up with me,” Phil begs, throwing all dignity to the wind. It feels like his heart is breaking. He’s never felt anything like it. It’s unbearable. “I know we’re not really together, but… please. Don’t.”

“Phil. I’m not.” He sniffles. “I’m not. I just… I need time. To think. And get the words right in my head. And I need to focus on exams so I don’t fail out. I don’t want all the work you put into me to be a waste.”

“It wasn’t work,” Phil says. “Being with you is never work, Dan. I—”

“I have to hang up now,” Dan whispers. “Before I say something stupid.”

“I’m never gonna see you again, am I?”

“Phil. That’s literally the opposite of what’s happening. I’m trying to be smart for once in my life. I’m trying to actually do one thing right.” Phil hears him take a deep breath. “I’m trying to do you right.”

“You already are.”

“I’m not. If I was, Will would have never fucking got anywhere near you.”

Phil’s next words come out whispered and trembling. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be. You’re the best thing in my life, Phil. I’m not giving that up. Just give me a week.”

Phil’s heart hammers his chest, but he forces himself to breath in deeply, then holds it for a moment before breathing it out again. “Alright.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

**Dan**

The next week is hell. 

It’s also a relief. 

The moment he hangs up the phone with Phil, he clears his mind of everything that isn’t passing his first semester of law school. He doesn’t hate it any less than he did before, but he meant what he said: he’s determined not to waste the time and effort and faith Phil has poured into him. If Phil believes he can succeed, then who is Dan to say he can’t?

It’s hell not being able to see Phil every day. 

But it’s a relief to know what he needs to do. And he does. Every day he becomes more sure.

A few days after the incident at the club, there’s a knock on his door. He ignores it, burying his face in his international law textbook and pretending he isn’t in. But then there’s another knock and he hears Will’s voice. “Dan, mate. Can we have a chat?”

Dan would like nothing more than to smash Will’s stupid face in, but he shakes that off and stands up to open his door.

Will’s got his hands in his pockets, his head bowed slightly in contrition. “Can I come in?”

“No.” Dan steps out into the hall and closes the door behind him. “I need a coffee, though. You can come with.”

They head for the shop on campus. It only takes a few minutes to walk there, but every second is excruciating. Whatever Will has to say, he’s apparently not going to say it until they’re sat down.

Dan tries not to look at him. He tries not to notice that he’s kind of fit, in his own way. Much shorter than Dan, but much more built. He tries not to wonder if Phil is into that, if he would have let Will keep touching him if Dan hadn’t been in the picture.

They get their coffees, but it was mostly pointless as there are no tables available in the shop. Every student at York right now is a frazzled, underslept mess, so the place is absolutely swarming.

Dan heads out the door and Will follows. They’ll have to get this over with eventually. 

“So,” Dan says, after they’ve walked aimlessly for a few minutes and Will _still_ hasn’t attempted any kind of communication. “What do you have to say?”

Will coughs, stalling. Dan resists the urge to throw coffee in his face.

“I guess… I wanted to…” There is an aggravatingly long pause. “Apologize?”

“Are you asking my permission?” Dan says coldly.

“Look, I… This is fucking awkward as shite.”

Dan should definitely be more sympathetic. Will seems to be about as closeted as Dan is. But this whole situation is grating on his nerves, and the whole point of this week of radio silence is to collect himself. 

“You said you wanted to talk,” Dan says. “So talk, or let me get back to revising. I have an exam tomorrow.”

Will reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “Look, mate. I’m sorry, alright? I asked him if the two of you were a thing and he said no.”

“He was protecting me. I’m not out.”

Will nods. “So you _are_ together.”

Dan flashes him a look. “Yeah. We are.”

“I didn’t even know you were—”

“That’s what not being out means,” Dan snaps. “You should understand that easy enough.”

“Yeah.” He sounds so dejected. “Right. Sorry.”

Dan sighs. He told himself he wasn’t going to be a dick. “Look, let's just forget it, yeah?”

Will’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah?”

“I really want to forget it.”

Will nods, rubbing his hand over his mouth. “Yeah that’d be— that’d be good. I won’t tell Lucy or any of them about you. Appreciate if you don’t tell anyone about…” He gestures to himself, looking utterly humiliated.

Dan actually does feel a twinge of sympathy then. “I won’t. But I don’t care if you tell them about me.”

“What?”

Dan takes a long sip of his coffee. “Reckon I’m sick of hiding.”

“Well fuck,” Will says, mostly to himself under his breath. Then, “For what it’s worth, your guy was about ready to bite my head off after you ran off.”

“You forget his name already?” Dan asks. “Do you just throw yourself at every batty bloke you meet?”

“Oi. I’m trying to—” He lifts his hand and waves it back and forth a few times. “White flag, mate.”

Dan sighs. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. I’m still allowed to hate you for a while.”

“Fair enough, I guess,” Will says. Then he elbows Dan in the arm, hard. “Your guy. Phil.”

Dan can’t help smiling a little. “Yeah?”

“He’s fit.”

“I know,” Dan says smugly. 

“He’s mad for you,” Will says. “Don’t hold me against him.”

Dan just smiles. He doesn’t plan to.

-

After Dan’s last exam, he goes back to halls, has a shower, changes into the nicest jeans he has, a black t-shirt, and the hoodie he’d nicked from Phil last time he stayed the night. Then he sits on his bed and pulls out his phone.

_hey_

Phil’s response is almost immediate. _I miss you so much._

Phil smiles down at the screen. He can’t cry already. He just can’t. _you home_

_Yeah_

_can i come round_

**Phil**

His hands are shaky when he pulls the door open to see Dan stood on the stoop, hands in his pockets, face just as gorgeous and familiar as he remembers. It’s only been a week but it’s felt like a lifetime. 

He wants to scoop him up and squeeze him until he pops, but he’s not sure he’s allowed to do things like that anymore, so he just stands there mute and unmoving.

Dan steps forward and wraps one arm around the back of Phil’s neck, pulling him in close. Phil is stunned for a long moment before he has the good sense to close his arms around Dan’s back and squeeze.

“I missed you too,” Dan whispers.

They stand there for ages, just holding each other. So long, in fact, that Amelia wanders over to whinge about how much cold air they’re letting into the house. She seems to sense there’s something larger at play and has the good sense not to make any teasing comments. 

Once she’s left them alone, Dan drops his arm and Phil steps back to let him into the house. 

“Can we go to your room?” Dan asks.

Dan goes straight for Phil’s bed, climbing up and sitting cross legged in the middle of it. He pats the spot in front of him. “Come.”

He’s so unnervingly calm. Phil’s hands are bloody _shaking_ , they won’t stop _shaking_. He sits in front of Dan, mirroring his criss crossed legs and neutral expression. 

“So,” Dan says. “I talked to Will.”

Phil’s stomach clenches violently. “You did? Why?”

Dan shrugs. “He wanted to apologize. Turns out he’s not such a massive cunt when he isn’t trying to steal my boyfriend.”

Phil doesn’t process it at first. Dan is looking at him with a hint of a smirk, some kind of quietly smug look like he’s just said something really cheeky.

Then it hits him. “Boyfriend?”

Dan’s elbows are resting on his knees. He looks casual as anything, as if Phil’s insides aren’t absolutely fucking rioting right now. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

Phil hides his face in his hands. He had well and truly convinced himself over the course of the last week that Dan was going to come to the conclusion that this thing between them was more trouble than it was worth. 

Then there’s a warm weight on Phil’s thigh, and he looks up to see Dan unwrapping his legs and draping them over Phil’s. Phil uncrosses his and pulls Dan into his lap properly. 

“What’s happening right now?” he asks, quiet and gruff.

“I’m trying to tell you that I’m in love with you,” Dan says, putting his arms around Phil’s neck. “I’m in love with you and I want you to be my boyfriend. Properly.”

“You do?” He can’t pretend he isn’t starting to cry. He’s not even going to try. 

“Yeah,” Dan whispers, pressing his forehead to Phil’s. “If you’ll have me.”

Phil laughs wetly. “Shut up.”

“I’m serious. I hate what you said on the phone.”

“What?”

“When you said we’re not really together,” Dan says. “I hate that. Fuck that. We’re together.”

Phil nods, wrapping his arms around Dan’s middle, pulling him in as close as he can get.

“Next time Andy calls me your boyfriend, don’t correct him,” Dan says. “Next time some motherfucker tries to pull you in a toilet, tell them your boyfriend’s gonna kick their ass into next week if they don’t back the fuck up immediately.”

Phil laughs and pushes his face into Dan’s neck and smears his happy tears on Dan’s skin. “Is this real?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I told you, I wanted time to sort it out in my head. It’s sorted.”

“I love you,” Phil blurts.

Dan cups the back of his neck and pulls his face up to kiss him. Phil does the same, clinging to Dan’s neck, pulling him as if they could possibly get any closer to each other. 

“Thank you for waiting,” Dan says, nose pushed up alongside Phil’s.

“Don’t leave me ever again.”

“I won’t,” Dan says. “Besides, you know. Like, tomorrow, or whatever.”

Phil frowns. 

“Christmas,” Dan reminds him. “I have to go back to sodding Wokingham.”

“Are we telling people?” Phil asks. His heart has started racing anew at the prospect of what he’s about to propose.

“ _Yes_ , Phil.” Dan kisses him again. “Proper boyfriends.”

“So, then…” He pulls his face back a little and slips his hand into Dan’s. “Don’t go to Wokingham. Come to Manchester.”

Dan frowns in question.

“Let’s tell my parents.”

Dan just gapes for a minute. “You… you want to tell your parents about me? You want them to _meet_ me?”

“Hell yes.”

The smile that spreads slowly across Dan’s face is the best one Phil’s ever seen. It’s the purest expression of happiness he could possibly imagine, and it’s there because of Phil. Phil gets to have this now. He gets to wake up everyday and put a new smile on his boyfriend’s face.

“Then yeah,” Dan says, squeezing Phil’s hand. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to mandy for all the help and suggestions 🖤


End file.
